I Am From the Gutter, Too
by Smaointe Salach
Summary: RE-UPLOAD! I'M BACK! Éponine agrees to provide Javert with information in order to avoid the "just but severe hand of the law." What happens when the stern, unyielding Javert grows a tad too close to his new informant? Surrounded by national turbulence including a cholera epidemic and an uprising in Lyon, Javert and Éponine must reconcile their own lives with a changing France.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: As many of my former readers know, I was extremely sick with hyperemesis gravidarum and cholestasis during my pregnancy. I was pregnant from February to October of 2013, and I spent about half the pregnancy in the hospital and the other half with IVs in my arm and on bed rest before delivering my baby at 36 weeks via c-section! Phew. Anyway, now that that adventure is over and the adventure of mamahood has begun, I needed about 3 months to get back on my feet and get a routine settled before I felt comfortable re-uploading my works and getting back into writing. I hope you all forgive me and I hope you all look forward to reading new things from me half as much as I look forward to writing them in the very little free time I have as a stay-at-home mama. (Yes, this means that naptime = fanfic writing... hehehe). Thank you all so much for your support. I love you dearly. Long live the Republic.**

* * *

"Stop right there, you scoundrels." Javert surreptitiously slipped through the darkness of the alley and wound up right behind the men attempting to open the garden gate of a bourgeois house in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The Inspector had two more men with him, young men under his command eager to make arrests in the dank shadows of a February night in Paris. Javert motioned to the other two officers to place shackles and cuffs on the men who had been breaking into the gate before they could run.

"Honest, Inspector, we were just examining the lock. Admiring it," said the man who appeared to be the ringleader. "You know... inspecting it. I'm sure you of all people, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, can understand that!"

Javert pursed his lips and only then noticed that among the gang of men, there was a girl of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. She eyed him with intense suspicion and loathing, but not a trace of fear. Javert cleared his throat and said to his junior officers,

"Take the men to the station. I will deal with the girl."

"Farewell, my little girl!" the ringleader of the gang called as he was roughly led away in chains.

The girl nodded gruffly to the man and pulled her thin burlap shawl more tightly around her thin shoulders. Javert cleared his throat.

"You know him well."

She nodded. "He is my father."

"Your name?" Javert took out a little writing pad and a stubby pencil. He noticed that the girl seemed quite cold indeed, huddled there in only a thin single skirt, bodice, and shawl. She shivered and her teeth clattered together. Javert sighed and considered chivalry, carefully removing his outermost coat and offering it wordlessly to the girl. She took it gratefully, muttering her thanks. The sleeves were so long that her hands didn't come out the ends of them, and the coat reached the wet cobblestones due to her short height. Javert eyed the girl in his coat and bit his lip thoughtfully. He adjusted the collar of his woolen uniform and said again, roughly, "Your name, mademoiselle."

"Éponine Jondrette," she answered. She shifted on her feet into the dim light glowing from a window above, and Javert managed to get a look at her.

He recognized her now. A year ago, he had found her family beneath the arch of the Pont Sully, and now they lived in Saint Michel. It was rumored that their true name was Thénardier, that they had been bankrupted as innkeepers outside the city in Montfermeil, that the father had been a soldier of fortune at Waterloo. So it was said. Javert had no idea of the truth. All he knew was that this girl standing before him, this Éponine, was emaciated and waifish, and that she wore a scandalous outfit consisting of a chemise and tattered maroon skirt beneath Javert's heavy uniform coat. Her miniscule waist was cinched by an old, cracked belt, and her feet were ensconced in the destroyed remnants of what were once simple leather shoes. Her hair, dark brown and wavy, fell loose in a mess around her face - her bony, filthy face that looked as if she'd not washed it in years. When she spoke, her voice cracked and was hoarse, and she coughed dryly every now and then. She filled Javert with a tempest of competing simultaneous emotions: disgust at her appearance, anger with her father for letter her fall into such poverty, pity for her sad state, and inexplicable grief.

The latter was perhaps because Javert suspected that, in another time and place, this Éponine could be very lovely indeed. She had been aged by want, roughened by destitution, had her edges roughened by insolvency. She had been rightly ruined by her poverty, and it made Javert a bit sick to think of the family under the bridge now scrambling through a life of crime in search of enough money for food and rent. Javert noticed the Jondrette girl staring at him, seemingly wondering if he was going to say anything. He cleared his throat.

"Mademoiselle, I am compelled by my duty to report you as an accomplice to the attempted burglary I interrupted here."

Éponine's eyes went suddenly hollow and filled with a dark sadness. "I beg you, Inspector, I will do anything. Do not take me to jail."

"What were you doing here?" Javert demanded. "Why did you decide to come with your father and his gang tonight?"

"I was supposed to keep watch for the police," Éponine spat, eyeing him angrily.

Javert tipped his head. "Well, Mademoiselle, it appears as though you failed miserably at your task. I should like to propose a compromise to ameliorate my discomfort with jailing a young woman who was surely pressured into crime. Likewise, it will help you avoid the just but severe hand of the law."

Éponine shifted on her feet and pulled at her tangled hair a bit. "I'm listening," she said, her voice cracking in the cold night air.

Javert nodded curtly. "Every once in a while, put a note for me underneath the Pont au Double, on the side of the Île de la Cité. Place it between the bricks in a spot where there is missing mortar."

"What should the note say?" the waif asked, looking uncomfortable as she hugged Javert's coat more tightly around her skeletal shoulders.

"Tell me what goes on in Saint Michel," Javert shrugged casually. "Whenever the police show up, everyone scatters and I never get a true glimpse into routines. Therefore, I do not know when an activity or action is abnormal for a particular person. If I patrol there, I wish to know it well."

"I can not write, Inspector," Éponine said, shaking her head so that her snarled brunette waves quivered.

"I think that an absolute lie," Javert told her confidently. "Your family had money once, no? I think you can both read and write."

She was silent then, and kicked aimlessly at a little rock between the dank cobblestones.

"Have the first note there tomorrow afternoon so that I may retrieve it tomorrow evening. If it is not there, I will come find you in Saint Michel and arrest you. Then your punishment will be far more severe than those suffered by the more willing members of Patron-Minette."

"The note will be there, Inspector...?"

"Javert," he answered, bowing chivalrously and tipping his uniform hat. "I will leave a reply tomorrow night after reading your information. Now, off with you, and find no more trouble this night."

Éponine took off Javert's heavy coat and handed it back to him, once more clutching her ratty little shawl around her tiny shoulders. She dashed down the street as silently as a cat, her ragged skirt flapping like a sail behind her as she ran.

The following night, Javert was patrolling the Île de la Cité when he paused at the Pont au Double and walked underneath the arch. There, in the bricks about four rows up from the mud, he saw it poking ever so slightly out. It was Éponine's note. Retrieving it and stepping back up into the light of the street lamp so that he could read it, Javert unfolded the note, which was written upon thick paper seemingly torn from a sketchbook.

"Dear Inspector Javert,

Today in Saint Michel was quite boring, mostly because you and your police still have my father and his friends. They create all of the ruckus that goes on around here, except for Gavroche, who is harmless. Some bourgeois old woman was coming through today and got swarmed by everybody asking her for money. I thought she might just fall down dead. Maybe she was lost. I left her alone. Thought you'd be proud to know. There was a fistfight between Pierre Gigerot and François Haubert. I am not sure what led to the fight this time, but François won, because he knocked out one of Pierre's teeth. They are drunks who fight whenever they get the chance.

I did not get the chance to tell you as I might have liked earlier - I find you to be quite handsome indeed and very well-suited to your post. You seem to take your job quite seriously and I can not say I have ever met any police as honorable as you. I wonder, Inspector Javert, are you a married man? I am simply curious. You needn't tell me if you wish not to. I hope I have helped you and kept myself from getting arrested. I will be here at the Pont au Double at eleven tonight for my answer.

- Éponine"

Javert pursed his lips after reading the note, then crushed it in his hand so that he would not be tempted to keep it. She had spunk, this little waif, and she had an attitude that belied her position and physical stature. Javert was not sure why he found that strangely appealing, or at least interesting.

He felt around in his coat and uniform jacket and realized with a frown that he had forgotten his notepad and pencil at the police station. He took out his brass pocket watch and checked the time. It was ten forty. Even if he hurried, he would not have time to go back to the police station, write a reply, and leave it here before she came back. Deciding that he would circle the block around the bridge a few more times, Javert resolved to simply wait for Éponine and tell her in person what information he wanted next.

Twenty minutes later, he saw her come silently out of the shadows and duck beneath the arch of the bridge. Javert wordlessly followed her down there, looking around cautiously to ensure that no one was near. He called her name in the darkness and identified himself. Then he padded quietly through the mud until he reached her, huddled in the cold against the slick, wet bricks.

"Good evening, Mademoiselle," he said in greeting, tipping his hat and bowing a little. She looked back at him with her wide, glistening eyes, and this time the loathing and suspicion were noticeably absent.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The Flames, The Sword**

* * *

"Come to arrest me?"

Éponine spoke with a twinge of bitterness in her voice, as though she had been betrayed, sold out... hurt. She began backing slowly away from Javert in the pitch darkness of the area under the bridge, looking for all the world like she was ready to run.

"No. No, Mademoiselle, I am not here to arrest you," Javert assured her, holding up his hands to indicate his peaceful intentions. Once again he was struck by how violently Éponine shivered in the frigid air, and once more he pulled off his heavy woolen coat and offered it to her in the darkness. She approached him as a cat might approach water, very cautiously indeed, and slowly took the coat. She looked around frantically as though she worried that this might be some sort of trap, and then hung the warm woolen coat on her bony frame as she had the night before. Javert sighed; this creature had been so attuned to the darkness that she was like a nocturnal animal of the night. She prowled so silently through the void that Javert scarcely heard nor saw her as she moved, but she had a weakness - she was cold in her rags.

"Was I helpful?" Éponine asked with a little sniffle. "Not much happened today. I told you everything I thought was important." She shrugged, trying to look indifferent.

Javert gave her a crooked little wry smile. "Quite helpful," he told her. "I now have my suspicions confirmed that it is Patron-Minette causing most of the real trouble out of there. I also know who the street fighters are, and why the bourgeoisie are always complaining about passage through the area. Why, yes, Éponine, I should think you so helpful I could positively grin about it, though I am not wont to do so."

Éponine did grin, from ear to ear, her eyes glistening in what little light Javert had to see her.

"At least one man notices I'm alive," she murmured with a sad little laugh.

"I beg your pardon?" Javert asked, for he was not entirely certain he'd heard her correctly.

She looked up at him with abruptly sad eyes and sighed. Javert towered over her, and was so broad-shouldered as to make her look like a child.

"Neither my own father nor Marius Pontmercy notice my existence," Éponine lamented. "You... you cared enough about the fact that I am a human being to make a deal with me and not just cart me off to jail. You are a man of mercy, Inspector Javert."

"I am a man of justice," he corrected. "And, anyway, I should think you rather difficult to ignore." He shifted uncomfortably on his feet on the muddy riverbank and cleared his throat, crossing his hands over his woolen trousers. He saw Éponine eye the silver epaulet tassels on his shoulders, the laurels embroidered around his collar, and the honor pin he wore on his chest. Javert tipped his head back a tiny bit, rather proudly, and sniffed.

"Well, for what it's worth, Monsieur, you are positively impossible to ignore in that uniform." Javert was not sure if she was goading him, being sarcastic, or being serious, so he chose to let the comment go. "I suppose," Éponine continued, "that many women have pined after you over the years."

Javert stared at her confusedly and finally shook his head vehemently, crinkling his eyebrows. "No, mademoiselle, indeed not," he insisted. "No woman has ever shown even a passing fancy toward me."

"I see. Then you are unmarried?" Éponine glanced down to his left hand and noted the lack of a ring. Javert simply nodded hesitantly.

"You have a warm fire in your home, I trust?" he asked. "This cold snap is quite dangerous. I do not wish for you to be exposed to the elements."

Éponine looked rather embarrassed and hugged Javert's thick coat around her body ever more tightly. She stared down at the muddy ground and shook her head no. "We can not afford a fire," she admitted.

Javert sighed heavily. "It will only get colder as the night goes on. I can not leave you my police-issued coat, but I am quite concerned about your safety with a lack of heat."

"I will be quite all right, Monsieur," Éponine assured him. "This time last year I was living under a bridge like this one all winter."

"It was not nearly so cold as this last winter," Javert pressed. "May I offer for you to accompany me to my home and spend the night in one of my guest bedrooms? That way you will have a warm, soft bed in which to sleep, with a cozy fire to keep you comfortable, and plenty of hot food in the morning for breakfast."

Éponine eyed him suspiciously. "You saw me with house robbers last night and you want to show me where you live?" she asked disbelievingly. "You know I'm nothing but a scummy little street rat and you want to offer me warmth and food? This sounds like a trap."

Javert shut his eyes and shook his head with a sorrowful sigh. "I assure you, mademoiselle, it is nothing but a genuine offering. You are more than free to decline. I bear only the most real concern for your safety and health in your present residence."

She burrowed her face into the wide collar of his woolen trench coat and inhaled deeply, as if she were taking in his scent. Finally, she nodded reluctantly.

"My mother will scarcely notice I am gone, and she certainly won't mind it," Éponine said ruefully. "Papa is still in jail. I am rather unwanted."

Javert shook his head angrily. "No one ought to be made to feel that way."

"You were, weren't you?" Éponine could see it in his eyes, that he knew the sensation of feeling unwanted far too well.

Javert cleared his throat roughly and trekked out from underneath the bridge. "Come," he said harshly to Éponine. "My home is not far."

Javert lived in a modestly sized home outfitted with quality furnishings that were practical and reasonable. He had few ornamental items and little in the way of trinkets and novelties. Javert was one to save his money. He had a housekeeper who came every day to clean, empty his chamber pot, change linens as necessary, and so on. Javert mostly ate his meals at various inns and taverns around his home and therefore the kitchen was very rarely utilized. His house had three bedrooms, one large and two smaller, each with a fireplace, four-post bed with curtains, wardrobe, and dressing table. The house also had a parlor, dining room, kitchen, and a study. It suited Javert well, and he quite liked living there.

He lit a lantern upon entering through the heavy wooden entry door, leading the way for Éponine to follow. She looked wide-eyed around the house in the flickering golden light, as if she scarcely remembered at all what it was to be middle class. Javert gave her the briefest of tours, showing her the hunter green and mahogany study and the red and gold bedroom where she would be staying. It was a little room, but more richly appointed than any other, with lovely tapestries on the wall and a carved white marble fireplace. Javert immediately built a large, raging fire in the fireplace, so that Éponine could warm herself. He heated a large pot of water and brought that as well, handing Éponine a sponge and some Marseille soap so that she could scrub her face and body. He gave her a few linen towels and one of his shorter length dressing gowns so that she might have something warm and comfortable to wear to bed. The mattress itself was made of very soft, high density linen and stuffed with a combination of soft cotton and down. On the bed were six down pillows and a few warm quilts. It truly was a very cozy bed.

Once Javert was assured that Éponine was settled into her room, he bid her adieu and shut the door gently behind himself as he left her. He departed to his own bedroom and meticulously removed his uniform piece by piece. He placed his sabre on the mantle and unpinned his cross carefully. Treating each button as if it were very delicate, Javert removed his woolen uniform jacket and hung it in his wardrobe. He shucked his shoes and shined them, then removed his stockings and dark blue trousers. He clad himself in a quilted velvet dressing gown and scrubbed at his bearded face in his washbasin. As he rinsed his skin, he heard a gentle knocking on the door behind him.

"Inspector?" Éponine's raspy voice called through his bedroom door softly, as if she was unsure that he was awake.

"Please come in," Javert answered, patting dry his face and feeling a sudden rush of anxiety at the thought of an unmarried female entering his bedroom for any reason at all. She pushed open the door and stepped carefully into the room, Javert's sapphire-colored dressing gown hanging awkwardly off of her lean frame.

"Monsieur, I did not properly thank you earlier. I was overwhelmed by your kindness," Éponine said, trying her best utilize a proper voice and speech pattern. "So now, here I am, to tell you most earnestly, 'Thank you very kindly, Inspector.'"

The robe slipped a bit from her shoulder, revealing her milky flesh in the moonlight and nearly baring her chest to Javert. He turned his head away modestly and waited for her to fix it, but she did not. Instead, she traced her little fingertips over her slightly protruding collarbone, across her smooth skin. Javert could not help himself; he saw it out of his peripheral vision. He gulped and felt his heart quicken in his chest and could feel the pounding in his ears.

"Goodnight, Mademoiselle Jondrette," he said softly, his voice trembling.

At first she did not answer, but then, as she turned to go from the room, she said in reply, "It is Thénardier."

"I know," Javert answered gravely, flicking his eyes up to watch her leave. He had a sudden feeling that inviting a vixen like Éponine to stay alone in his home with him was possibly the worst idea he had ever had.

* * *

In the morning, Javert rose with the dawn despite having slept only four hours. It was actually more than he often got, with his frequently disturbed slumber and his chaotic work schedule. Today, he had a day shift, so he needed to rise and prepare some matters for work before he left for the station at ten.

Javert put his uniform on as carefully and meticulously as he had taken it off, using a lint brush on his woolen jacket before putting it on over his white cotton shirt. Once more, as had happened the night before, there was a quiet, gentle knock upon his door.

"Yes, mademoiselle?" Javert called mildly. She creaked the door open a few inches and peeked into his room.

"M'sieur, I see you are getting ready for work. I shall leave at once." She turned from the door and started to walk quickly away, but Javert called after her,

"Come back, please."

She did, poking her head again between the door and its frame and pushing it open a few more inches. She looked at him with a question in her wide eyes. Javert pulled his dark blue, richly embroidered uniform jacket around his shoulders and pushed his arms through the sleeves. He hooked the heavy clasp at his neck and began fastening the pewter buttons over his muscled torso. Éponine watched him with intense fascination, her little hand clutching the door frame as if it were holding her upright.

"Inspector..?" Her voice croaked slightly as she whispered to him in the silent room. She was clearly wondering why he'd had her come back, why he hadn't let her go gather her things and leave his house.

Perhaps she had been wanting kind words from him, or something even more than that, but in any case she seemed sorely disappointed when he reached for his coin purse and extracted eight francs.

"Use this," he instructed her, "to buy a proper coat or a cape to keep you warm, and perhaps some gloves. You mustn't freeze to death if you are to be my informant."

Éponine frowned deeply. "Makes a girl feel something like a whore, M'sieur, to spend the night at a man's house and get paid in the morning."

Javert's cheeks reddened and he cleared his throat. "There was no impropriety whatsoever," he reminded her, "and, anyway, this is payment for providing me with information." He held out the bill and coins in his thick hand to her, and Éponine cautiously took the money, nodding her thanks. "You should get some more rest. It is still quite cold indeed outside. I have work to do before I leave in a few hours," Javert told her. He adjusted the stiff, starched white collar of his dress shirt beneath his uniform jacket, glancing into the mirror above his fireplace for guidance. Once again he caught Éponine staring intently at him.

"I suppose the sun has just barely come up," Éponine admitted. "Although, I must confess, I could hardly sleep the last few hours as I've not been in a bed so soft in many years." She anxiously tapped her spindly fingers on the door frame and sighed lightly.

Javert flashed her a miniscule, embarrassed smile, no more than a tiny upward twitch of his lips. "Were you at least warm?" he asked. He sat in his wingback chair and slid on his boots today instead of just his shoes, anticipating mud in the damp, foggy day. He would also be riding, so he put on his spurs. He flicked his eyes up to Éponine, waiting for a response to her question. She looked a bit distracted, her eyes locked on his log-like legs. Javert cleared his throat, and she seemed to jolt out of a trance.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked, her voice sounding slightly panicked.

Amused by her apparent girlish infatuation, Javert repeated, "Did you keep warm last night?"

Éponine smiled gently, leaning into the room on the door jamb so that Javert could see his sapphire velvet robe cinched around her microscopic waist. She nodded mildly, a look of genuine happiness in her gleaming eyes.

"Warmer than I've been in many months," she confessed. "I had cozy clothing, a significant fire, and heavy blankets atop me. Also, I feel quite clean!" She coursed her fingertips over her gaunt face, which was no longer streaked with the filth of the streets. Her skin, pale and dull in its poor condition, was at least not dirty anymore. Javert noticed, too, a faint scent of lavender coming from the doorway, and he thought it was Éponine herself emitting the pleasant aroma.

Javert could not help himself smiling at her then, standing from the chair and tugging at various places of his uniform to adjust himself and ensure that he looked proper. He grabbed his sabre from the mantle and placed it at his hip.

Now he had a bit of a conundrum. Éponine was blocking his path out of the doorway. He couldn't very well demand that she move, and she seemed as though she had no intention of moving.

Javert sighed deeply when he stood just a pace away from her, noting again with some internal conflict the lavender scent. He'd not been attracted to a woman in many years, since, he reckoned, the days of his foolish and ignorant youth. Now, this little waif had arrived and made him positively giddy - by his standards - with her pluck and gumption, the natural beauty that had been stolen from her, her wordless little smiles and her new soft scent of lavender.

Damn her.

Javert cleared his throat and stared at his feet. "Mademoiselle," he murmured, hoping that would be enough to prompt her out of his way. It was not.

"There's a toll," Éponine informed him with laughter in her voice.

"Hardly a way to properly thank a host... trapping him in his own room and demanding monetary payment to allow him exit," Javert said ruefully.

"Who said the payment was monetary, Inspector Javert?" she asked in a husky, seductive voice, drawing herself near him to close the pace's gap between them. "The toll I demand is one good kiss." Her voice was a whisper now, her face just inches away from his.

Javert gulped, hard. "Éponine," he murmured, warning in his low voice as he turned his face away from hers, "I will not kiss you. Please step away from the door."

She did, though she looked hurt and somewhat crestfallen. "As I said, I am but an unwanted soul," she declared sadly, backing through the doorway and meandering slowly down the corridor into the guest room. Javert said nothing in response. He only stood where he was, leaned heavily on the door jamb, and breathed heavily through his nose. He shut his eyes tightly and tipped his head against the painted wood, scolding himself for letting her get so close to him. He should have... he wasn't quite sure... pushed her away? How to physically restrain a woman from making unwanted advances on a man? But then, it would be easier to solve that problem if he could more easily discern that the advances were truly unwanted.

Javert completed some paperwork in his study for several hours while Éponine slept, then he left the house to get food. On the way to the little restaurant where he could get food to carry away with him, he passed an unassuming dress shop that vended ready-to-wear items including simple calico dresses that did not appear to cost much at all but would undoubtedly be greatly appreciated by Éponine. But, then, he thought, that would seem horribly suspicious, for her to come back from a night at a man's house with new clothing and eight francs.

So, he passed the dress shop regretfully and paid for food at the tiny tavern. He got for them fresh bread and salted bacon, as well as a some warm roast potatoes packed in paper. He carried it all back in a brown paper sack, ignoring the tavern-keep's curious look when he ordered enough food for two. Javert was a regular customer here, but always came alone and ordered for one. He arrived back at the house around eight-thirty, and walked as confidently as he could manage into his dining room, planting the food at two place settings on opposite ends of the table. He made a plate for Éponine, giving her a particularly generous helping of crusty fresh bread and bacon, along with a few heaping spoonfuls of potatoes.

Apparently, she smelled the food, because a few moments later, she came walking out into the dining room looking as shy as a mouse. She wore her tattered chemise and skirt, with the wide belt around her tiny waist, and had her moth-eaten gray shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her feet were once again sheathed by the destroyed leather shoes she had had on the night before. She padded silently into the dining room and sniffed like a small animal at the food on the table. She smiled happily up at Javert and breathed,

"Is this for me?" she gestured down to the plate of food before her and marveled, her eyes gleaming with tears. Javert nodded wordlessly at her and folded his hands on the table, leaning his chin on his fists.

Éponine ate with a distinct lack of grace and poise, digging into her food as though she were an animal and was on the verge of death by starvation. Javert attempted not to judge her undignified behavior, though of course it was in his nature to judge harshly. He said nothing until she had eaten every scrap of food and wiped her greasy mouth with the back of her hand, sighing contentedly with blissfully closed eyes.

"Have you had enough, mademoiselle?" he asked her cautiously, prepared to offer her his own food out of courtesy.

She nodded enthusiastically. "Such fine words to say, Inspector Javert... I am quite full indeed."

Javert curled his lips upward a bit at that and rose to take Éponine's pewter plate from the table. As he placed it in the kitchen to be washed, he called to her,

"I wish for you to know that if you should ever be wanting for a hot bath or a hot meal, you need only ask in one of the notes you leave me under the Pont au Double, mademoiselle."

"Éponine," she said quietly.

"Pardon me?" Javert asked, striding his intimidating height back into the dining room.

"Please, call me Éponine," she requested. Javert nodded mutely. He wasn't sure what he wanted to call her. Angel? Siren? God's own work of art? In any case, he knew that she had a stranglehold on him that no human had ever had, and she had only known him for a few days. His body reacted dramatically to her presence. His mind was a tempest when he tried to compose himself around her. He wasn't quite certain if he ought to treat her with pity, mercy, or reverence - perhaps all three. Maybe he ought to just take her back to Saint Michel and leave her be... never speak to her again. His chest physically hurt when he thought of that, and he had precisely no idea why. The confusion made him uncomfortable, and he shifted nervously in his seat.

"I must be on my way to work," Javert said after a brief and awkward silence.

"Then I shall take that as my cue to leave," Éponine said, pressing her lips together and averting her eyes. "Thank you, Inspector, for your kindness and generosity."

They reached the front door of the house at the same time. Javert put on his bicorn hat, dark blue felt trimmed with matching ribbon. He planted it squarely atop his head, where his graying hair was chopped short. He thought absently about how gray that hair was getting, how old he was becoming. If he did not act on corporal desires soon, he may never, ever get the chance. He cleared his throat and suddenly asked of Éponine,

"How old are you, precisely?"

She raised her eyebrows at him and scoffed, grinning. "Don't you know, Monsieur, that men are not to inquire a lady's age?"

"I am asking for many reasons, the very least of which is morbid curiosity," Javert assured her, pursing his lips in frustration. Why the blazes did she have to be so cryptic all the time, always beating around the proverbial bush and avoiding direct answers to questions?

"I am seventeen years of age," Éponine told him, then smiled as slyly as a fox and asked him, "And you, Inspector? How old are you?"

Oh, no. If there was one thing Javert would not reveal to Éponine so soon after meeting him, it was the Achilles' Heel that was his age. He was fifty-one years old, though of course he was not about to reveal that to this little waif before him. So he just shook his head and said, "Perhaps someday I will tell you."

She looked irritated and cracked her knuckles before she opened the doorknob, exposing the foyer to the biting cold air.

"Have a fine day at work, Inspector. Thank you again," she said blandly, and she began to walk out the door.

Javert rather panicked in that moment. If he let her go, she would be gone and he would have no idea when next he would see her in person. But what would he say to stop her? It felt like she was dry sand slipping through his fingers, a half of something that might have been outstanding and instead had dissolved into ruin. So, he acted quickly and impulsively. The words came out of his mouth before he decided to say them. He called after her,

"Éponine, wait!"

He felt nothing but elation when he saw her turn around over her shoulder and stare curiously at him as she padded back into the foyer. Javert earnestly shut the door behind her and took a step toward her so that she backed up against the door and he stood quite close in front of her.

"Inspector..." her voice was hesitant and unsure.

"Éponine," Javert said with a trembling voice, nervous with all his soul for what he was about to do, "You forgot to collect your toll."

He was relieved when she grinned widely, her lips parting into a wide, beaming smile. She laughed a little and nodded.

"May I kiss you, please?" Javert asked, his voice less shaky now but still wracked with nerves. His heart fluttered in his chest and his stomach felt a bit queasy. He'd not kissed a woman in about thirty years, and he'd nearly forgotten how.

Or so he thought.

When Éponine nodded her consent, Javert impulsively reached for her cheeks and pulled her into a gentle kiss. He touched his lips very softly against hers at first, a mild brush of skin against skin as light as a feather. Then, immediately craving more, he deepened the kiss by opening his mouth a tiny bit and peeking his tongue out to sweep across her closed mouth. When she squealed quietly, Javert's knees nearly buckled. He had to stop before this situation exploded out of control. He heard every manly urge in his body screaming at him to touch her here, kiss her there, moan this way, say her name. He fought to banish the thoughts and hastily opened the door.

"Adieu, mademoiselle," he said in a panting, low voice. He gestured for her to step outside, which she did, padding dreamily along the sidewalk as she hummed a little tune.

"I shall have the next letter of information for you under the Pont au Double by tomorrow morning," she promised. "I hope to see you again soon."

Javert tipped his hat to her and murmured to himself as she sauntered happily off into the cold,

"You will, Éponine. You will."

* * *

Javert rode through the streets on horseback, for it was much quicker than walking and he could cover far more ground that way. The horse he rode was a tall bay gelding called Rivage. Javert had named him soon after arriving from Montreuil-sur-Mer, having a sore pining for the seashore. He had been riding Rivage around the streets of Paris for eight years.

Tonight, both he and Rivage were terribly distracted. The horse was spooking at little noises, like laughter from inside a house. He reared when a cat crossed his path in a dark alley, and Javert struggled to stay in his saddle, for he, too, was somewhere else.

It had been ten days since he had seen Éponine in person. She had dutifully left him letters under the Pont au Double nearly every day, and he had always responded in kind. Each letter was filled with helpful information: Auguste Marbelle and Yves Destrantes were plotting to kill Auguste's wife so that he could run off with his mistress. The wife had uncovered the plot and was seeking a divorce. Nanette du Bois was leaving for Canada soon and would be taking all ten of her children with her. Her husband was already in Montréal waiting for them. Eloise Champillion had begun prostituting herself around the streets of Saint Michel to pay for her expensive opium habit. It seemed as though Éponine knew everything going on in Saint Michel, and it certainly helped Javert stay one step ahead of the crime and ruckus there. Of course, he had to let a few things slip through the cracks, lest people catch on that he had an informant among them. Some of it was little more than idle gossip; most of it helped Javert craft a profile of the neighborhood that he might spot oddities and abnormalities more easily.

The night of his patrol on horseback, early in his shift, Javert had gone beneath the Pont au Double. There he had found Éponine's note in the crevice where she always left it, her now-familiar scrawl filling the entirety of the page, front and back. Scrunching his brow as he pulled the letter into better gas light, Javert wondered to himself what on Earth could be going on in the slums that she would need to write him such a lengthy letter.

"My dearest Inspector,

I write to you tonight not with information. I apologize for that. Truly, nothing exciting happened today, and rather than present you with nothing at all, I thought I might try to put into words what I do not have the courage to say to your face - your handsome, strong, determined face.

Upon opening each letter I have received from you thanking me for information and giving me further instructions, I have felt a fluttering in my belly and a pounding in my chest. I do not know exactly why, for I know so little about you. I wish to know more. I wish to know who you are and why it is that I find you so interesting. Will you tell me? Will you show me?

I will bare my heart and soul to you if you will only be my friend, Inspector. I have only one friend, you see, and truly that is unrequited friendship. Perhaps you do not wish for me to reveal myself in such a way. Fear not! I will stay silent. I will do whatever pleases you to gain audience with you. All I ask is to see you once more and experience again the heavenly sensations I felt when you paid me my toll.

You instructed me to ask you permission in a letter if ever I wanted to come again to your home for food or shelter. I ask not for those necessities but for companionship. Please come to the my house in Saint Michel at your earliest convenience and rescue me from the stagnation I endure in this frigid hell. I will be grateful forever.

Your friend,

Éponine"

Usually, Javert destroyed Éponine's letters by tossing them into a fire somewhere after he'd taken notes in his little book. This was so that the letters could not be traced back to Éponine. This one, though, he could not bring himself to burn. He wanted to read it over and again until the paper disintegrated in his hands, for he had never received a letter of any kind containing words of such kindness and promise.

Javert stared ahead of him as he crossed the Pont Neuf later that night, having ruminated on her letter for many hours. He hardly noticed when Rivage stopped walking because Javert was no longer urging him forward. Shaking his head in frustration, Javert snapped to life and put pressure on Rivage's rear abdomen with his heels. He used his hips to prompt the horse to walk.

Éponine... Her name echoed and ricocheted around Javert's head like an annoying insect. Never had he been distracted from his work like this. He was a focused man. He was driven. He was not to be made giddy by a little girl, and that was truly what she was - a skinny little bug of a thing. Hardly anything to her at all, but she had more clout than any figure in Javert's life. Only Jean Valjean had mentally consumed him thus, but that had felt different. That had been an angry frustration. This sort of frustration was driven by many desires - a desire to know more about the girl, a desire to see and speak with her, a desire to touch and be touched.

It made Javert feel quite small and weak to think that he was subject to such corporal distractions and liabilities, but there was truly no helping it. So, when he glanced at his pocket-watch and realized his shift had been over for twenty minutes, he decided to go to Saint Michel. Whether he was off to fetch her, see her, or simply be near her, Javert was not entirely certain, but Éponine was like a force of nature drawing him near.

He rode down the streets in the slums with caution, for it was not unheard of for a policeman to be attacked at night in these parts. He kept one hand on the hilt of his sabre, at the ready, and scanned with his eyes. The ones he called the 'night crawlers' were the only ones about. Prostitutes, pimps, their customers, and drunkards. There were also those who had nowhere else to go huddled against walls, curled into fetal positions and somehow miraculously asleep through the chaos. The unsavory characters scattered like cockroaches when Javert approached on his horse.

This was no place for Éponine to be living, he thought ruefully. He found the house where she lived, located in an abandoned, dark corner, and carefully thought about how he was to get her attention. He could go inside and demand to see her, saying she was needed for police questioning. That would be terribly unconvincing. Just as he was attempting to solve his conundrum, a young man came ambling out of the bottom floor of the house to see why the police had arrived. The boy wore much finer clothes than were to be expected in this neighborhood. Javert thought he was probably the student that Éponine had mentioned once and then described in a letter, a jaded bourgeois student called Marius.

"Good evening, Monsieur." Javert tipped his hat to the young man from atop his saddle. The young man looked rather terrified but nodded back in return.

"May I help you?" he asked cautiously.

Javert considered his next move, and then decided to be rather bold.

"Do you know a girl called Éponine who lives in this house?" Javert asked the young man, feeling his mouth go dry.

The boy looked as if he was thinking of saying no, that he had never heard of such a girl, and regarded Javert with intense suspicion. Then, at last, he sighed deeply.

"Is she in trouble?" he asked Javert.

"No, Monsieur. I need to speak with her. She is in no trouble whatsoever." Javert tried to control Rivage as he stomped anxiously around the entrance of the house.

"Your name, please?" the boy pressed, looking rather haughty.

"Inspector Javert," answered the policeman, tipping his hat again and backing his horse up.

The boy nodded and disappeared again into the house. Javert could hear his running footsteps ascending the creaky wooden stairs inside the house. Inside an upper window, a spindly little candle tried to glow through the dirty glass. Javert heard the boy enter that room, where the candle was, and he strained to hear the voices above the street.

"... police officer downstairs... Javert..." He managed to make out every few words that the boy said.

"Thank you, Marius." He recognized Éponine's voice as clear as day though he hadn't heard it in over a week. The little filthy window where the candle glowed creaked open, and then he saw the glint of her wide eyes in the glow of the moonlight.

She said nothing, but she grinned widely when she looked down the street and saw Javert gazing back up at her, a tiny smile on his normally stoic face betraying the happiness he felt at seeing her. His heart soared like a falcon, seeing her happiness, seeing the gleam in her eyes.

She shut the window as quietly as she'd opened it, and then he heard padding footsteps coming down the stairs. Then Éponine came rushing silently out the front door of the house and trotted up to Rivage. Javert was elated to note that Éponine wore a heavy woolen cape. It was a dusky gray color and nearly touched the cobblestones. It fell in a lovely shape around her, with a wide hood upon her head.

"You came!" Éponine gushed, standing beside the horse and clapping her hands merrily. Javert dismounted Rivage, feeling rather puffed-up inside and more wanted than he'd felt in all his life.

"Of course I did," Javert said casually, shrugging. He felt anything but calm inside, but he kept himself composed externally. "I should like to keep you company, as you asked. I realize it is quite late, mademoiselle, and undoubtedly it is grossly improper of me to call upon you at this hour. However, I have only just finished my work shift. If you should care to accompany me home, you are more than welcome. If you desire to remain here, of course I am entirely understanding."

His voice trembled by the time he was done, and he gulped heavily against the feeling of dread, the fear of rejection, that he experienced. He was positively gleeful, then, when her reaction to his words was to lean up against his cold, hard form and plant a kiss square on his lips. She pulled back, looking surprised at herself, and giggled nervously.

"I'd like to come with you," she whispered. Javert grinned on the inside, as brightly as the summer sun, but managed to compose himself enough to simply say,

"Very well. Let us away."

Éponine smiled slyly to herself, as if she knew that he was suppressing his reaction and emotions, trying to appear strong and stoic, trying to be the man he'd defined himself to be.

Javert wordlessly held his hands out for Éponine to put her foot in so he could boost her up onto Rivage. She swung her leg up to his spine and sat aside him, sidesaddle-style. She planted herself atop the little pad of leather behind Javert's saddle that all policemen had in case they ever needed to escort someone on horseback to a station. Javert looked up at her before he mounted the horse and thought she looked quite lovely indeed there, with her gray cape draping down around her as beautifully as if it were crafted of silk and not wool.

He pulled himself up, noting with a twinge of disdain the discomfort he was beginning to experience at his age when he swung his right leg to the other side of the saddle. It was particularly difficult since Éponine had mounted first and he was trying not to kick her in the gut.

Javert took the reins and looked around to see who was watching. The Inspector leaving Saint Michel with a young woman on his horse would be gossip fodder the likes of which had not been seen in many years. Nobody seemed to see them, other than Marius, who was watching from the window next to the one from which Éponine had looked down to Javert.

"Hold onto me as we ride," Javert said softly over his shoulder. When he turned his head, Éponine's face was perhaps an inch away from his, her little chin perched upon his shoulder. He felt an abrupt and powerful urge to kiss her fiercely, and he did not move his face away for a long moment. Her breath was warm on his lips. Her bright, wide eyes shone at him through the darkness. As Javert continued staring at her over his shoulder, Éponine snaked her hands around his waist and clasped them in front of him. She squeezed gently, as if she were embracing him rather than using him for support.

He settled on a chaste kiss upon her forehead in lieu of passion in public. He was almost certain that Marius was watching and, after all, Javert was still in uniform. That was of utmost importance to recall at all times. He faced the correct direction again and urged Rivage forward.

Éponine pulled her hood forward on her head and buried her face in Javert's shoulder in order to more clandestinely ride out of Saint Michel. When they crossed the Pont au Double, the place at which all their written exchanges had taken place, Éponine whispered into Javert's ear,

"Will there be more, Inspector?"

For the briefest moment, he wondered whether she meant more letters or more physical contact, more than the restrained chastity they'd practiced in front of her house. Then he realized that it truly did not matter which one she meant. The answer would be the same.

"Yes, Éponine. There will be much, much more."

* * *

Javert returned Rivage to the police stable about a block from his home, unloading Éponine first in an adjacent alley so that she would not be seen. Then they walked back to Javert's house, where he placed his weighty skeleton key in the lock and pushed the heavy door open. It was mildly warm in the house, for the maid had warmed it with fires when she had been there earlier.

They moved wordlessly as Javert built the fires back up, with Éponine taking a seat in the armchair behind him. Finally, she spoke.

"I am very glad indeed that you came to fetch me, Inspector."

"Please," he murmured as he poked at a crumbling log, "simply call me Javert."

"What is your first name?" Éponine asked curiously.

How was she to know? Should he tell her the truth? He was not a liar, but he did not feel entirely ready to disclose all of his personal information to Éponine yet. He cleared his throat.

"I... was born in a prison, you see," he said softly, still crouching and gazing into the flames, "to a Gypsy woman. She named me 'Javert,' and it is actually my father's surname that I do not know. As is the case with many people throughout history, from Plato to the Pope, I am known by a mononym. I am simply 'Javert.'"

"I see," Éponine said, when he was finished. Javert was happy that she did not seem to judge him beyond those two words, and then she said quietly, "My name is always changing depending on our alibi. My father forces me to write letters begging for money, using false names. The pseudonyms I create are often quite ridiculous. And, then, I am at times 'Éponine Jondrette' to the public, but really I am Éponine Thénardier."

Javert mutely joined her, sitting in the armchair beside her, and together they silently stared into the crackling flames. He felt sorry for her, truly - for her abhorrent relationship with her parents, for her fall from grace and her descent into poverty, for the desperation it was clear she felt.

"Names are curious things, aren't they?" Éponine mused with a sorrowful little smile, her eyes quite sad. "They are the first thing with which we are identified, and yet they say less about who we are as people than anything else. I may be called a Thénardier, but I should like to think that I am better than that."

"You are indeed," Javert murmured reassuringly. He flicked his eyes over to her and noticed that she still wore the gray wool cape. "I quite like your new purchase," he noted, changing the subject of conversation. He gestured to the cape so it was clear what he was referencing. Éponine glanced down at the cape and smiled gently.

"It only cost me five francs," she bragged, "and I used the other three to buy some new shoes!" She nodded down to her feet, and only then did Javert notice that she wore sturdy short boots. They were black and plain, very simple, but they were far better than the scraps she had been wearing before. Javert smiled and nodded at her, glad that he could make her so happy with so little money.

Javert was immediately saddened, however, when he thought of all the good he could do for her. He could take care of her, truly take care of her, and make her comfortable. He made more than enough money to support another person. He spoke before he completely thought through the implications of his words.

"I have a room for you here," Javert said abruptly, "and a bath and plenty of food, and I would buy you fine clothing."

Éponine's eyes went as round as saucers and her mouth dropped open. Her face was horrified. Javert quickly realized that it rather sounded as though he had just proposed marriage to her.

"If you felt as though I were treating you as a charity case, you could replace my maid," Javert said hastily, and Éponine looked more disgusted than ever.

"Good God!" she gasped, rising quickly from the chair and looking intimidating despite her diminutive height. She planted her hands on her hips and spat, "I am no whore, Monsieur! Eight francs here for letters. Room and board there for kisses and company. I am not the filthy street slut you clearly believe me to be."

She turned to storm from the room, leaving Javert in stunned silence, but then whirled back around and continued fuming, "Do you know, Monsieur, that you are quite cruel indeed? For ten days I dreamed of you like the star struck child I suppose I am. Then you came for me and it was just as the fairy tales said - a prince on horseback. Mine came in the night and he came in a uniform, but I did not care, for I wanted you so, Monsieur. I did not realize I had a heart until you crushed it into shards as if it were glass."

She turned to leave again, and Javert felt a most unfamiliar sensation abruptly well up inside of him. It was shame, he thought. He was ashamed that he had made her to feel so cheap. He was also frustrated that he had not articulated himself clearly.

He moved quickly, crossing the room in two long strides until he reached her. He pushed the door closed with his hand so that she could not leave. Éponine glared at him with rage in her eyes.

"Let me pass," she hissed.

"I want only to help you," Javert insisted. He held up his hands in a gesture of peace. He prayed she would not slap him, for that was what she looked like she would do at that moment. Instead, he saw tears well up in her wide chestnut eyes.

"I do not need help," she said, and although Javert knew that Éponine had intended to sound angry and resolute, her words came out as a cracked sob. Javert said nothing, for he had nothing to say to a creature so wretched. He simply chewed on his bottom lip and stared at her with as much warmth in his eyes as he could muster. When she met his gaze, the tears that had pooled in Éponine's bright brown eyes tumbled over her lids and cascaded down her cheeks in streams, betraying her tenacity and dissolving the mask that she wore. She swiped angrily at her tears with the backs of her hands, trying to wipe them away faster than they fell. She failed at that task, and her dogged determination to never let the world see her cry was demolished as Javert gazed upon her.

"You've been helping me for nearly two weeks," Javert reminded Éponine, his voice little more than a whisper. He wanted to embrace her, badly, but he felt that was unacceptably forward, so he reached timidly out with a trembling hand and swept her hair back from her face. "You have been a greater help than you know, mademoiselle. If you will, please, allow me to reciprocate in the way I know how, which is to attempt to ameliorate the poverty you suffer as a result of your father's foolishness."

"You... want me to live here, with you?" Éponine asked disbelievingly. "As your maid?"

"Please attempt to erase my rude suggestion regarding that from your memory. You would be my guest, Éponine. The red and gold room is yours as long as you would like it. Your meals and clothing would be covered, and you would never be forced to endure your father's life of crime or your mother's cruelty again."

Éponine had mentioned in one of her letters that she had quite a vicious mother, who viewed her offspring as an annoyance and a burden, and found more joy in pickpocketing and deception than in honest work. How could he send her back to that world, to the squalor and filth, the grating sickness and hunger? How could he kiss her in his warm and plush home and then shoo her back to such wretchedness? It was akin to banishing an angel to Hell.

Éponine stared at Javert with a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she were imagining the life he had suggested - one where she wore decent clothing and had enough to eat each day and slept in a comfortable bed. Javert swept a star tear from Éponine's cheek with the pad of his thumb.

"I would not be able to provide you information," Éponine warned him.

"I should think very much that I would prefer this arrangement," insisted Javert. "I'd much rather you be safe and happy than be a tool of the police force."

"I can never go back there," Éponine realized with a twinge of sadness in her voice. "I could never see Marius again."

At the mention of Marius Pontmercy, Javert sighed and pinched his lips together. Here he was, offering his home and finances to Éponine, and she could speak only of the damned student in the slums. If he was honest with himself, this waif frustrated him beyond belief.

"What do you care to do, Éponine?" Javert asked, pressing her for a definitive answer. He held out the door for her. "If you would like to go back to Gorbeau House and see Marius, please feel at your liberty to do so."

"No," Éponine whispered, almost inaudibly. She stared into the flames in the fireplace for a moment and then turned her face back to Javert. "I should like to stay here, with you."

Javert, his heart pounding as he realized what he had just done, readied a bed robe for Éponine and poured some wash water into her white porcelain basin. He fetched her a few towels and shoveled some glowing embers into a brass bed warmer for her. Éponine said precisely nothing at all as he completed his tasks, choosing instead to stand back and out of the way.

He had invited her to share his home. He had thought it the most foolish thing he'd done to have Éponine spend one night in his house. Now, he thought that surely this was exponentially more foolish. A woman, permanently in the house of the callous and solitary Inspector Javert? What good could possibly come of it? Javert was not a terribly religious man, not anymore, and he was somewhat unconcerned with the notion of sin surrounding the cohabitation. Nonetheless, his scruples and society insisted to him that he was, while not breaking any law, acting in an unacceptable manner.

Ultimately, the only framework within which Javert operated was the law. That was why he'd been pulled away from the Church - at times Canon and Civil Law clashed. Javert chose the Law of the Land, and he followed it with absolute rigidity, completely inflexible in his condemnation of those who chose to break it. He reassured himself more than once as he readied Éponine's bed that he was breaking no law in putting her up and exhibiting a spirit of charity.

And, yet, something else nagged at Javert. Was there something more at play beyond his want - need - to provide for Éponine? Perhaps, he admitted to himself, even the stone statue that was Inspector Javert was not immune to human emotion, including desire and attraction.

As Javert considered these many issues and questions, he prepared himself for sleep, changing from his work uniform into his nightshirt and quilted robe. He pulled clean woolen stockings onto his feet and sat on the edge of his bed, wondering if it wouldn't be a half-decent idea to pray before sleeping. Just as he was about to descend to his knees, Éponine padded into his open doorway in her robe and leaned onto the doorframe. Javert heard her clear her throat and turned over his shoulder to smile gently at her.

"Goodnight, dear Inspector," Éponine said teasingly. Javert rose, walking as quietly as he could to meet her in the doorway. He wondered as a floorboard creaked beneath his heavy step how on Earth Éponine managed to traverse the house so silently. Years of practice in the dark alleys, he thought sadly.

But this was no time for sadness. He would not be alone any more, and though he was not certain whether he ought to mourn or celebrate that fact, he knew the winds of change were gusting in his life. He ought to accept them standing.

Javert put his hands on Éponine's shoulders and pulled her boldly off of the doorframe into his chest. She leaned her ear against Javert's sternum and made a little noise with her mouth mimicking the sound of his heartbeat - a sound which, to Javert, sounded quite quick indeed.

He encircled his arms around her lean, body back, hoping that soon she would be a bit more substantive after eating properly. Éponine reached up with her spindly fingers to the ties at Javert's neck, which hung loose, and snaked her fingers beneath the white cotton. At the sensation of her fingertips tracing his collarbone, Javert breathed in deeply and held the air in his lungs, for he did not believe himself able to breathe normally at all.

He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, as he had done earlier in the night when he had taken her away on the back of Rivage. Éponine was clearly not satisfied with such modesty and reached her mouth up to meet his. He caught her lips against his, kissing her quite deeply indeed. Immediately, he plunged into her mouth, exploring the orifice earnestly. He nibbled upon her bottom lip and swept his tongue over her lips. He could not help himself from emitting a small noise, something between a wordless utterance and a murmuring of her name. He wanted so much more than he was taking, and it was taking every last ounce of will power to keep himself from parting her robe and hoisting her up against the wall and claiming her for his own.

Éponine kissed him back enthusiastically, pulling his tongue into her mouth with her own. She made high-pitched sorts of grunts every few moments as he did such things as trace circles on the roof of her mouth with his tongue. For a brief moment, her hands drifted around rather aimlessly, until Javert seized them and laced his fingers through hers. He squeezed her hands more tightly when she stood on her tiptoes and moved her mouth to the sensitive skin of his neck, coursing her lips over his Adam's Apple and driving her tongue ferociously around the skin under his ear. At that, Javert moaned aloud, his voice hollow with desire and thoroughly uncontrolled.

"Éponine," he groaned, sounding as desperate as he felt, "Please go to bed before I lose all semblance of control and this arrangement becomes entirely improper."

"Don't you think," Éponine paused briefly in kissing Javert's neck, "it already is?"

He did suppose it was so, that it was altogether improper that Éponine should live in his home and be subject to his charity, and that meanwhile he pined for her flesh. There were legal solutions to such problems, of course - none of which Javert was even remotely ready or willing to consider. He may not be a religious man, but he was not entirely without honor, and he would never claim a young woman's maidenhood when said woman was not his wife.

"Éponine, stop," Javert said, his voice gentle but firm. He wrenched her from his throat and held her by the shoulders, noting her flushed cheeks and panting breath. She wanted him, as well. That was obvious to behold.

No matter how mutual the attraction, Javert would not dishonor himself and Éponine by descending to the most base of his instincts. Éponine looked at him with a question in her eyes.

"Not now," he whispered. "Not yet."

Éponine nodded in what, surprisingly, appeared to be appreciation and understanding. Then she brushed her lips gently under Javert's eye and murmured into his ear,

"Goodnight, my prince."


	3. Chapter 3

Javert had more difficulty sleeping that night than he had had in quite some time. He was known to be something of an insomniac, frequently troubled by thoughts of vagabonds and criminals who had escaped the clutches of the law, but tonight was different. His mind was racing, and he could not slow it down. It was as if his consciousness were a wolf dashing after some unseen prey, its hunger insatiable.

He had mental images of dressing Éponine up in fine clothes, of watching her eat cakes and of her reading a book before a fire. Ultimately, though, none of that seemed very much like Éponine. Wouldn't she, at least in part, always be the streetwise ragamuffin darting off to her next adventure? How could he restrain her from herself? He couldn't, quite simply, and he ought not to even try. All he could do was to offer her whatever material things she wanted and leave her completely free to decline.

After Javert wrestled with the conundrum of Éponine's financial care, he struggled with the scruples of his physical relationship with her. Javert could not help feeling, deep in his gut, that he was taking advantage of the young girl – and she was indeed so very young. He felt so profoundly old around her… positively ancient. That feeling only reminded him that he was running out of time to enjoy a woman's company properly. He'd not given his body much pleasure at all in his life, and the time to do so was slipping through his fingers like so much sand.

And here she was, an agreeable woman who wanted him, truly wanted him, and exhibited that want with mischievous enthusiasm. Here was Éponine, a bit of a siren, who seemed to want his kisses and his touch far more than his money. Why on Earth she would want him, the gruff and old man he was, Javert had no idea. He could see nothing appealing when he looked in the mirror, but who was he to question a young girl's whimsical attractions?

After hours of not sleeping, Javert rose creakily, tied his warm robe about himself, and processed out of his room down the hallway to his study. He thought he might get a bit of work done – affidavits and witness reports needed to be signed warrants needed to be issued, and Javert found no greater soporific comfort than the completion of his work.

He was quite surprised indeed to find the door of his study open and the room emitting the warmth and glow of the fireplace. Glancing cautiously inside, Javert spotted her sitting in one of the wingback chairs. She must have had perfect hearing, for she glanced up as soon as he stepped into the doorway.

"Hello," she murmured, her smile a bit too animated for three in the morning. Her eyes glimmered in the light of the fire. Javert thought she looked rather innocent there, just like that, in a robe by the fire. He knew better, though. This creature was anything but innocent.

"Mademoiselle." Javert bowed slightly and decided to regard her formally in an attempt to keep the situation from spiraling as it had but a few hours before. Unconsciously, his hands checked to ensure that his robe was tied sufficiently tightly about his waist.

"I could not sleep," Éponine told Javert with a shrug.

Javert licked his lips nervously and struggled to swallow. "I confess I could not, either," he admitted. He tensed his body where he stood and shifted a bit on his feet. "I was considering doing a bit of paperwork."

Éponine nodded. "I shall return to my chamber, then, Monsieur, and leave you to it."

"No." Javert held up his hand to stop her rising from her wingback. "Please. Stay." He walked over to his desk and began shuffling papers about, lighting a tallow candle so that he could see his work. "I should like the company," he said quietly, his voice little more than an embarrassed mumble.

He scratched his eyebrow and licked his bottom lip again, sitting rather shakily in his desk chair. Éponine watched him from where she sat as he dipped a quill into ink and began signing one paper after another by the light of the candle.

"What troubled your sleep, Inspector?" she asked softly.

Javert did not answer for a moment, pursing his lips as he considered what to say.

"Nothing in particular," he lied finally, feeling his cheeks grow hot. How could he possibly reveal to her that his mind had been tormented by thoughts of her and her alone for hours? He cleared his throat and dipped the quill in the ink again. His voice had sounded tight when he'd spoken. Javert thought with some disdain that he was a very poor liar indeed.

"I was thinking of Marius," Éponine said abruptly, and Javert felt the nib of his quill jerk against the paper. A blob of ink appeared in the middle of his signature, and he hastened to blot it, his mind suddenly fuming with the unfamiliar emotions of jealousy and possessiveness.

"I see," was all Javert could manage to say, for Éponine's silence seemed to indicate that she expected some sort of reaction to her words.

"I realized," she continued, apparently unaware of Javert's distress, "that I _wanted_ Marius to see me leave when you took me away. I realized, Monsieur, that I was attempting to garner his attentions with my absence. Perhaps I thought he would come after me, or write for me. Perhaps I thought that if I did not immediately return to Gorbeau House that he would be mad with jealousy and pine for me. But none of it matters now, you see."

Javert watched Éponine intently as she spoke. She stared into the fire, avoiding Javert's gaze. Javert could feel his heart race and thump frantically in his chest, though from what sentiment he could not accurately discern.

"Why does it not matter, Éponine?" Javert asked finally.

She looked at him with her shining eyes, though now they were glistening with tears.

"He never looked at me more than was necessary," she whispered. "He never spoke a word to me that he didn't need to speak. He looked at me with… I'm not sure, I suppose... Aversion? Shame? In any case, it was never love. Never the kind of love I wanted. If ever he wanted me, it was for an errand or a favor. If ever I got a gift from him, it was charity. If ever he showed me affection, it was out of pity. No, Inspector, I shall not return to Gorbeau House, not ever. For you see, there is nothing for me there. I have neither mother nor father nor Marius Pontmercy who care for me enough to see me return."

Javert did not suppose he had ever heard gloomier words spoken by anyone in his entire lifetime. He bit his bottom lip, hard, and set down his quill, turning in his chair to face Éponine.

"I am sorry for you, Mademoiselle," he said softly, "but it is because I believe you to be deserving of both attention and affection."

There. He'd said something courteous and gracious. Now, could this appalling awkwardness disperse and allow him to work? Javert did not function well in socially awkward situations, and a young girl pouring out her romantic woes to him was as tortuous as Javert could sustain.

At least, that was what he told himself. In truth, he believed every word that he had said. He _did_ believe her to be deserving of both attention and affection, and he thought he could provide both in abundance. Yet, it would require a diversion of focus from his work, and how could he possibly allow that? Furthermore, to provide such cares would soften his rocky exterior, and would that not weaken his efficacy as a police officer?

No. Javert could do both, he told himself. He could be both a man at home and a man at work. Indeed, he could flourish at both functions. To this end he resolved to triumph.

"I can give you anything you want, Éponine," Javert said, his voice more tender than he'd ever heard it escape his own lips. He rose from his chair, rather impulsively, and walked to stand before her wingback. "I am not referencing clothes or food or a place to live, though of course you may have those things. I speak of affectionate dedication to your well-being and your happiness. I speak of earnest fidelity and I speak of fond devotion."

He looked down from his great height to where she sat in her chair. Éponine did not answer his offer, but looked up at him with a fire in her eyes that he'd not seen before. She did not look as though she were withering beneath the sadness of Marius' disregard anymore. She looked as though she was entangled in a web of desire, struggling hard to find a way out and not knowing the way. Javert felt his heart quicken again and he thought he wanted very badly once more to kiss her.

He sat in the wingback beside Éponine and drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair. He tipped his head back and shut his eyes, sighing heavily in an attempt to slow his heartbeat. The situation was on the brink again. He could let it fall off the precipice, or he could rein it in and attempt to regain control. Before he could make a decision, he felt a pressure on his thighs and lap, and his eyes sprang open.

Éponine was climbing onto his legs, straddling his hips and snaking her arms around his shoulders behind his back. Javert tensed his body and froze, holding his breath. What on Earth was she doing? Didn't she know that he had no intention of taking her body for his own? He would _not_ defile an unmarried woman – not one of her age, a virgin, for whom he bore great affection.

"Please," Javert tried to say, but his mouth was so dry that the word was nearly inaudible.

"Please what?" Éponine asked, and it was then that Javert realized he was not sure how he wanted to answer that question.

"Please…" he began in a desperate whisper, and there were several ways he could finish his request. "Please kiss me."

His hands were still gripping the arms of the chair, and when her lips touched his, his fingers clenched hard on the velvet. Their kiss grew passionate as it had hours before, with tongues intertwining, teeth gently nibbling, mouths suckling mildly.

Javert felt himself grow firm beneath Éponine and wondered if she minded, wondered if he disgusted her. Then he felt her thin little hips moving against him and realized that she neither minded nor was disgusted.

"Ungh…" At the sensation of Éponine's hips grinding against his own, Javert's hands flew up to the back of her head and crushed her mouth harder against his own. She squeaked calmly into his mouth and delved her pelvis more steadfastly against his rigid erection. She moved rhythmically against him as though she were back astride Rivage. She broke their kiss and her lips migrated to the side of Javert's neck, where she began licking, nipping, and suckling with just the right amount of pressure and force. Her right hand ensnared itself in the short curls on his chest, and her left hand played with the cropped hair on his head.

All of it was too much… too stimulating. She was here, there, everywhere at once on him. Their bodies pressed ever more tightly together as she rode him, just a few layers of fabric separating their flesh. After what seemed like simultaneously a lifetime and an instant, Éponine pulled away from Javert's neck and stared at him with uncertainty in her eyes. Her parted lips were swollen and glistening.

Javert shook his head wordlessly at Éponine, trying to catch his breath. He could not do this. He could take this no further. This depravity must end here, now, before it descended into actions that could not be retracted. Once a woman's virginity was stolen, it could never be returned. He would not be that man, that villain. Javert reached for Éponine's face and met her eyes sadly. After a moment his eyes scanned down over her disheveled body and he wished he had not looked, for what he saw only made him want to continue his wicked actions.

Her robe had parted at the chest from where she'd been writhing against him, and her breasts were nearly entirely revealed. He could see the gentle curves of those breasts, heaving with each breath she took, between the folds of the robe. Her skin looked so soft and unspoiled that he wanted nothing more in that moment than to reach out and trace his fingers across her flesh. Javert flicked his eyes back up to her face and saw that her brown hair had become tousled and wild from where he had entangled his fingers. Knowing that he had done that, that it had been his hands that made her hair look messy, only made him grow harder beneath her.

She wriggled against his erection, perhaps unwittingly, though the sensation was too much to bear and Javert nearly threw her off of him in his attempt to stave off his arousal from completion. He roared in frustration and glared at Éponine.

She stood, quickly, and wobbled on her feet. She wrapped her robe around herself tightly. Then, looking embarrassed, she scurried wordlessly from the room and was gone.

Five minutes later, after locking his bedroom door securely, Javert parted his robe and lifted his nightshirt with his chamber pot in front of him. He brought his hand to his throbbing, hard member, and his fingers felt like fire against the intensity of his pleasure. Such was the excitement she had awakened in him. He tipped his head back and struggled not to make noises as he stroked himself, thinking only of Éponine – her face in the firelight, the gentle curve of her breasts, the feel of her hips against his. It took but a moment before he finished in the chamber pot and collapsed into bed, a sweaty and panting mess.

He was more confused than ever, his mind a jumbled disarray of emotions he could not calibrate. Should he send her away? Should he tell her in the morning that this was a horrible mistake, suggesting that she live here? Should he tell her she was allowed to stay, but was required to stay five feet away from him at all times? How was he to handle the fire that burned in his chest, in his loins, in his mind and – dare he admit – his heart, for this uncouth little waif?

Before he could reach a logical conclusion, he had fallen asleep. Before he could determine the next reasonable course of action, morning had come and it was time to act.

* * *

"Is she to be your wife, Monsieur?"

Javert gulped heavily. His maid Pauline did not realize the loaded nature of the question she had asked. Was Éponine to be his wife? Not today. Not tomorrow. Someday? Who could say? He would not answer with a definitive 'no.' Nor would, or could, he affirmatively confirm any semblance of future plans.

Finally, Javert cleared his throat and answered Pauline, "She is my guest."

Pauline eyed him suspiciously as she prepared the bath, dumping a bucket of near-boiling water into the copper tub. The old woman nodded, slowly, and asked in a pointed voice,

"Then she is to be my mistress?"

Javert pursed his lips and nodded slowly. "You are to attend to her as you do me, in the little time you spend here. If that does not please you, by all means, feel at your liberty to seek employment elsewhere."

"Of course I will serve the Mademoiselle! I think her to be quite… _quaint_, Monsieur, if I may speak plainly, but -"

"If your words seek to lecture, Pauline, then you may _not_ speak plainly." Javert's voice could have frozen the hot water in the tub. "Please go fetch Mademoiselle Éponine and tell her the bath is ready."

Pauline nodded deferentially and curtsied as she slipped past Javert, muttering a half-hearted apology. It was clear how the maid felt. The street urchin in the spare bedroom was not worthy of the dignified Inspector she served. Pauline had arrived this morning to find a strange young woman in the red and gold room, and she had not liked it one bit. That much Javert could tell. Well, he thought, he was not subject to the judgment of a chambermaid.

Javert straightened his dark wool jacket and sniffed as he stood in the center of the room, gazing upon his reflection in the still water of the bath. He saw a man no better in origin than Éponine herself, a man who had risen from the ranks of the lowly to a more prestigious position in life and society through his own hard work and determination. Why could not Éponine do the same? Why was she unworthy of escaping her poverty? Why was she to be doomed for all time to the slums and filth into which she had been so unceremoniously dropped?

And, furthermore, why _couldn't_ she be his wife? She had no husband, and he had no wife. They got along amicably, as far as Javert could tell. He would provide for her, make her happy, and she would clearly be keen to fulfill her wifely carnal obligations. Was that not a recipe for a contented and fruitful marriage? Javert felt as though he were surrounded by a thousand ticking clocks, each ready to chime the hour at which he could no longer take a wife and expect her to bear him children. Éponine was youthful and willing. Why _couldn't _she be his wife? What the blazes was stopping him?

Javert sighed as he looked into the reflection of his own sad eyes. He was surprised, pleasantly so, that he did not jump or startle when another, smaller likeness joined his reflection in the water's mirror. Éponine appeared beside him, silent as a ghost, her friendly face smiling gently at him. Her small hand reached up and fingered the tendrils of the silver epaulet at his shoulder. Javert's eyes drifted beside him, to her actual form, and he saw that she wore nothing but a linen towel draped about her middle, covering just her torso and privates.

Javert's eyes went round as saucers and he took a disconcerted step back, away from her. There was too much skin. Her arms, her legs, her bare feet, her collarbone and shoulders… Javert turned his head away and swallowed weightily. His eyes flicked to the door behind Éponine to see that she had locked it.

"Mademoiselle," he breathed, staring at his writing desk. "As you can see, your bath is ready. I apologize for the rudeness my maid may have shown you. She is-"

Javert stopped, for Éponine had let the towel fall from her thin frame and crumple on the ground around her. From his peripheral vision, Javert saw the towel fall and saw Éponine's nude form revealed, and he could not help but stare for the briefest of moments. In the instant he gawked, he took in her round, soft breasts, her flat stomach, the tiny thatch of dark hair betwixt her legs and the hint of the curve at her hip.

"My God, Éponine." Javert panicked, turning entirely away from her and placing his hands on his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to steady his breathing. He tried to think of something, anything, besides Éponine and the image of her uncovered body he had just beheld, but the depiction was burned on the back of his eyelids.

Just as he felt the unwelcome pressure of his own body struggling against the fabric of his trousers, Javert sensed her behind him.

"Please, _please_ put the towel back on, and let me leave you to bathe," he begged.

"I was hoping you might help me," Éponine said. Surprisingly, her voice did not sound seductive or even playful. Rather, she sounded soft and tender, her hand mildly reaching for his and pulling it gently from his head. She guided him back toward the tub, and he let her. He was not at all sure why he allowed her to take him and escort him as she did, but somewhere in the depths of his being, he thought it was what he ought to do.

Javert could not keep his eyes off of her as she sank with a hiss into the steaming hot water of the bath. He descended to his knees beside the tub and watched as the water seeped across her skin, leaving rivulets and trails where it drained off when she moved. Inattentively and distractedly, Javert handed her the Marseille soap and a sponge when she asked for them. His eyes locked on hers when they weren't exploring the beauty of her submerged body through the water, growing ever more cloudy with soap.

At some point in time that Javert would not have been able to pinpoint, Éponine handed him the sponge and turned around so that he might clean her back. He gulped and squeezed out the excess water, watching as Éponine pulled her wet hair over her shoulder. As he coursed the sponge gently across the bony expanse of Éponine's back, water ran in a little stream down his arm, soaking his sleeve. Javert thought absently that he would need to hang his jacket by the fire before work so that he did not leave for the station with a wet coat.

Everything that happened next seemed to Javert to happen very quickly, so quickly that he felt completely out of control of his body and mind. Éponine was clean, so she rose, dripping wet, from the tub, and wrapped a few towels around her body.

Javert found himself tearing those towels from Éponine's form just a moment later, ravenous like a wolf devouring its prey as he descended on her with a voracious kiss. He felt positively predatory, hovering over her naked body, himself fully clothed, ensnaring his fingers in the wet snarled tendrils of her hair as he crushed his mouth against hers and silenced her little squeals with his own rumbling groans.

He pushed none too gently against her so that she took a few steps backward toward the wall, astonished at his own behavior. What on Earth was he doing? Never in his life had he initiated something with a woman such as this, but never in his life had he watched (and assisted) a stunning

woman bathing in all her glory. His body ached for her, every tendon and muscle straining to know her, every nerve quivering with excitement. His manhood pressed insistently against the front of his trousers, almost painfully aroused.

Éponine had backed up against the wall and was now gasping helplessly as Javert ravaged her neck with his mouth. His hands clasped her wrists and pressed them hard against the wall, so that she was entirely trapped. Finally, Javert began to course his hands over Éponine's body, feeling the yielding and pillowy flesh of her breasts beneath his large, coarse hands. He felt the gentle curve of her side and guided his hand between them as she wriggled and moaned wantonly.

She was saying his name, again and again, her eyes closed as she breathlessly called for him though he was only inches away. Her voice turned into a choked sob when his fingers pressed into her velvet folds, swollen and drenched – and not from the bath water. Curious, Javert brought his fingers to his lips and tasted her metallic tang, moaning as he realized just what he had just put in his mouth. He drove his hips hard against her so that she could feel how firm he was in his trousers, how stimulated her nakedness had gotten him.

"I could claim you right now," Javert hissed into Éponine's ear, "and I probably should. But I won't. I can't do that to you."

The regret and sorrow that carried in his whisper echoed the conflict he felt within. Truly, there had never been a more opportune moment for him to engage a woman in physical relations. Honestly, he had never wanted a woman more in his life. And genuinely, he had never been surer that he should leave his clothes on.

He felt Éponine nod mournfully, almost apologetically, against the palm of his hand.

"Please do not torment me like this again." Javert took a step away from her, coursing his eyes up and down her panting nude form. "It is challenging enough to deny myself without deliberate temptation."

"You don't want me," Éponine shook her head, starting to step away from the wall.

Javert closed the gap between them and pinned her back. "I want you more badly than either words or actions could ever properly demonstrate," he asserted, "but you are not my wife." He scanned her eyes and planted a swift kiss on her lips. "Yet."

* * *

Five days later, Javert patrolled the Île de la Cité with a few other inspectors on horseback, urging Rivage along through the chilly morning air. The clopping of the horses' shoes on the cobblestones was the only sound in the crisp early day until Inspector Hambé spoke.

"I believe I am going to ask Josephine to marry me," he said, far more to the other Inspector than to Javert.

"Oh?" Inspector Nimeut said politely in reply. "How wonderful! She seems like a pleasant enough girl. Quite a good family."

"Yes. Her father has quite a bit of money; should be quite the dowry coming my way!" Hambé laughed, and Javert felt his stomach turn with anger.

Why should it matter one iota what money or goods accompanied a bride? Normally, Javert kept his mouth shut in any and all social situations, and very rarely voiced an opinion in situations such as these, but he said,

"Are you marrying Josephine, or her father's wealth, Hambé?" Javert looked askance at the younger inspector. "Remember that after you spend the money in the dowry, you must still live with and be decent to the girl herself."

Hambé narrowed his eyes. "Inspector Javert, may I ask when you became such an authority on the subject of marriage? You, the perpetual bachelor, proffering counsel on matrimonial bliss? Laughable."

"Indeed, Javert, when on Earth are you yourself going to take a wife?" asked Inspector Nimeut. "It seems odd that a man such as yourself has lived your life alone. No. Nevermind. That doesn't seem odd at all." He and Hambé shared a laugh and a nod at Javert's expense, and Javert felt his cheeks redden. He steered Rivage away from the two toward the cathedral of Notre Dame, where a small crowd was milling about in front of the steps. It looked innocent enough, but was Javert not an inspector? He said to the other two as he walked Rivage calmly toward the cathedral,

"It so happens, gentlemen, that I _may_ be nearing wedlock myself, though I find it to be precisely none of your business whatsoever. There is absolutely nothing wrong with bachelorhood; indeed, it has allowed me to focus more clearly upon my work. The two of you, on the other hand, have been prancing merrily after young ladies for years at the expense of your careers."

They pulled up behind the little group of about fifteen people on the steps of the cathedral and listened carefully to the curly-haired student talking in a passionate but discreet voice to those assembled. The boy glanced up at the police upon their arrival, but lowered his voice to little more than a murmur and continued speaking. The other students assembled leaned in to hear his words.

"The king has no right to be so, my friends! Did we not, in this fine nation, deliberately abolish the monarchy for the sake of common justice and liberty? Our reaction to the excesses of the Empire was to restore one man to power over all? No, I say, and I pray you say it with me, friends! No, and no again! We must take the power given to the few and give it to the many, so that the satisfaction in life enjoyed by so few may be enjoyed by all! We are living once more under the yoke of tyranny, my friends, though many may not know its weight upon their shoulders for what it is."

Javert felt his heart racing at the boy's words, though not because he agreed with them. This was traitorous speech.

"Disperse immediately," Javert said calmly to the boy, not feeling the need to raise his voice, "Lest we take you all in for treasonous actions."

The curly-haired boy looked to a friend for a moment of guidance, then met Javert's eyes. The student's gaze burned with the fire of rebelliousness, and he said,

"Another day, another meeting, my friends, and we shall talk more. Our day will come; let us have no doubt in our hearts or minds of that."

The meeting dissolved, but Javert kept Rivage put exactly where he was that he might ensure the students did not reassemble. The other two inspectors took places around the square in front of the cathedral. As all the students walked away from the steps, Javert noticed one boy who looked oddly familiar.

Marius Pontmercy.

So, the student for whom Éponine had fostered such great emotion was not only a thorn in Javert's side for personal reasons, but professional ones, as well? Javert narrowed his eyes and steered Rivage after Marius, following at a safe enough distance to hear what the boy was saying to another student, but far enough to not be noticed.

"I've no idea, Grantaire; she simply disappeared. She's been gone near a week now. Her parents seem perfectly satisfied with that. I hear them talking through the walls about the fact that they've been relieved of a great burden by her leaving."

Éponine. Marius Pontmercy was discussing Éponine's absence with his friend. Javert trained his ear more intently to the conversation but fell back a pace to avoid detection.

"And you, Marius?" the boy called Grantaire asked, taking a swig from a glass bottle.

"And I… have been able to more clearly focus on my studies," Marius admitted, shrugging.

Javert pulled Rivage to a stop. He had heard enough. Perhaps a week ago he had been questioning himself, whether he were truly a sufficiently suitable mate for Éponine in light of her attraction to the young and distinguished student, Marius. Now, however, he knew that he himself was far more beneficial to Éponine's well being than this trouble-making, heartless child.

He returned home that night, tired from his day's work, to find that Éponine had followed his advice and had gone to the dressmaker's shop that day. She modeled the ready-made, inexpensive calico dresses she had purchased, three in all, for Javert. He immediately felt that he could have, should have, insisted that she buy something nicer, but she seemed remarkably satisfied with the simple gowns.

He'd not touched her in five days. No kisses had been exchanged, no nakedness revealed between them. Instead, in the time when he had been home from work, Javert had spent his time listening to Éponine tell of what her life had been, of the struggles she'd endured and the few joys she had enjoyed. Javert himself had offered a few details of his own life, revealing as little as he could get away with while still painting for her an accurate picture of himself.

He sent her out of the house on errands for the both of them – to the grocer or the post office or the shoe repairman – just to get her out of the house while he was at work. He didn't want her sitting about; that did not seem to be her way.

Éponine insisted upon helping Pauline with chores around the house, and this ingratiated her immensely to the maid. Éponine maintained that she could not accept room, board, and gifts while giving nothing in return, so she scrubbed floors and reached high dusting places and did the other tasks that were increasingly more difficult for the aging chambermaid.

So, when Javert returned home from work that chilly day and removed his boots, Éponine met him at the door and twirled around happily in the mustard-colored calico dress she'd bought with his money. She still insisted upon wearing her hair down, though it was not the fashion; at least now she was able to brush it twice daily.

They ate their supper, a thick stew, in an unusual silence as Javert contemplated whether or not to reveal to Éponine that he had seen Marius at the cathedral. He scratched his head thoughtfully and stared into his bowl.

"Is something the matter?" Éponine asked worriedly. "I can take the dresses back."

Javert looked at her, confused, with a furrowed brow and shook his head. "No, it's not – it's nothing to do with that."

Éponine nodded and did not press him, though she crinkled her face as if she were trying to figure him out as she stared at him.

Finally, Javert took a sip of wine and said, "I was unaware that Monsieur Pontmercy was involved in a seditious political movement."

Again, Éponine distorted her face in confusion. "Marius? You saw him?"

Javert nodded and swallowed nervously. "At a rather mutinous meeting at Notre Dame," he pronounced, "after which I overheard him discussing your absence with a friend."

Éponine flew to her feet, leaning on her hands upon the table, and her jaw dropped open. "What did he say?" she demanded, her hair shaking about her face. "What did he say about me?"

It was precisely the reaction Javert was praying not to see, though he doubted she intended to seem so enthusiastic or cloying. He sighed and looked away, out the window at the freezing rain that had started to fall in the twilight.

"He said, Mademoiselle, that your absence relieved your parents and that it allowed him to focus more easily upon his own studies."

She was silent, then, and Javert actually heard her gulp from several feet away. She sniffled after a moment as though she were fighting to control the floodgate of tears that was sure to be unleashed by Javert's declaration.

"Excuse me, please," she mumbled as she dashed from the dining room, and Javert continued staring out the window as he heard her footsteps padding quickly down the hallway behind him and her bedroom door shut softly.

_May be nearing wedlock, indeed, _Javert thought ruefully to himself, moving to clear the dishes from the table.

Perhaps he ought to have said nothing of Marius, he thought. Perhaps he should have told her how beautiful she looked in her new dress, her hair finally showing its natural smooth wave as it fell like a halo around her face. He ought to have kissed her at the door; he ought to have taken her in an embrace. After all, he had heard today that no one missed her at home, and he himself had missed her just while he had been at work. But he had foolishly done none of those things, and instead what he had done was cruelly reveal to her that she was unwanted in Saint Michel. He had proven himself to be a bumbling oaf, with an acute lack of adeptness with all matters of the heart.

Javert ventured cautiously down the hallway and knocked gently upon Éponine's door. After a long moment, he heard her say,

"Please come in."

Javert cracked the door and pushed it cautiously open, happy to find that it was not locked. Éponine sat at the little desk in the corner of the room; Javert had interrupted her in the reading of a book, but she turned to look at him with eyes that had clearly been forced to stop crying.

Bless her for her will, Javert thought, for he was as uncomfortable in the presence of a crying woman as Éponine seemed to be with the notion of anyone seeing her in tears.

"I came to apologize, Mademoiselle," Javert said awkwardly, "for my rudeness. It is incredibly vulgar of one to mention such things as I did, and I ought not to have done it. Please, tell me how I may ameliorate the situation and I shall do everything in my power."

She smiled at him, very gently, though the redness of her nose and her swollen lips belied the sadness she felt. Regardless, Javert thought she looked very pretty sitting there, the last remnants of dusk bathing her face in a cool blue light through the window. He wanted to tell her how lovely she looked, how much he liked to gaze upon her, but the words got caught in his throat. Somehow, the look in her wide, gleaming eyes indicated to him that she had some understanding of his emotions.

"Please just come nearer to me," she said gently, "and touch me once more as you did before. I… need to know that _someone_ allots me some level of significance."

"You are very significant indeed, Éponine," Javert managed, and he stepped across the room to extend his hands to her. She took them, pulling herself up to a standing position. She wrapped her arms around Javert's neck and drew herself near to him, so close that he could smell the lavender aroma gently radiating from her.

"You smell absolutely wonderful," Javert said, his voice dry and cracking. He hoped that it was a proper thing to say in a moment where a woman had her arms around him, and he put his hands on her hips as if to reiterate to her that he liked her very much indeed. "Lavender."

"You smell like horse, and salt, and sweat, and snuff," Éponine giggled in reply. Javert felt his cheeks redden and grow hot, but then Éponine said seriously, "A manly bouquet. Very appealing."

Javert sighed and looked into her wide, dark eyes, admiring the remnants of her giggle. "You're very beautiful," he told her genuinely, and it was the truth. Perhaps when she had been at her worst from the streets he would have had difficulty saying it, but now her face was clean and bright and shone with the promise of a young woman with all her life ahead of her. He brushed the back of his hand against the apple of her cheek and touched his rough lips to her soft ones.

"More," she whispered wantonly, before Javert even had the chance to pull his mouth away. "More, please."

He obliged, delving into a kiss so deep that he nearly lost his balance on his feet. He entangled her tongue with his and felt her teeth graze his bottom lip. He moaned, helplessly, into her mouth, enjoying the vibration of his low voice on both of their lips.

He broke the kiss and pulled his mouth away, gasping desperately for air. Then he heard her murmur,

"More, Inspector."

He seized her waist and took a few steps backward until his thighs touched her bed. He let himself fall back into a sitting position on the blanket and pulled her down astride him, her wide skirt fanning out about them as she kicked off her black leather shoes and straddled him.

As she kissed him again, Javert felt his hands wander to her back, and he felt his fingers start to unbutton the many little buttons trailing down the dress. What on Earth was he doing – disrobing her, or at least attempting to! For shame, Javert told himself somewhere in the back of his mind, while the front of his mind focused on kissing Éponine.

Once the buttons were unfastened, he pulled the torso of her dress up and over her head, pulling and pulling the many yards of fabric until the entire garment had been cast down onto the floor. It may have been new, but Javert let it fall and crumple like an old rag, and Éponine paid no mind.

She was on him now in nothing but open drawers, a chemise, and cotton stays, and Javert set to untying the stays next. She shucked them happily and they joined the dress unceremoniously on the floor. The chemise came off next, then the drawers and finally a pair of woolen stockings, until Éponine wore precisely nothing at all and was straddling Javert nude and resplendent.

It had been one thing to see her naked in the bath. That had been arousing enough, but to undress her himself – Javert could scarcely breathe, let alone control his actions. His hands were everywhere, coursing over and gripping her bare skin like she was clay that he was forming.

He ran his fingers through her silky hair and pulled her in for another fierce kiss, feeling her fingers against his chest as he did. Her nimble little hands began to unfasten the buttons of his patrol jacket, finally pushing the garment back over his shoulders once it was unsecured. His white shirt was removed as hastily as the jacket had been, leaving him in boots and trousers. Javert struggled to kick off the boots, and when he could not remove them without his hands, Éponine crawled off of the bed to pull the boots off of his feet.

What was he doing? Javert tried to stop his head from spinning as he felt one boot yanked from his foot. This situation was already out of control; they were nearing mutual nudity and that could only lead to one thing. He had to be the mature one here, the one with enough life experience to demonstrate self-control and will power. There was only one problem: all his will power seemed to have taken its leave most unquestionably.

The other boot was yanked off and Javert clamped his eyes shut, leaning heavily back onto his elbows on the bed. He breathed deeply through his nose, trying not to moan as he felt Éponine's lithe little fingers unbuttoning his trousers.

He kept his eyes determinedly shut as he felt himself spring forth from the fabric confines, dense and stiff and throbbing with his arousal. He gasped and shuddered when he sensed one of her hands clasping around him; she used the other to yank his trousers down and off.

"Éponine," he murmured, but his protest was silenced by the warm, wet sensation of her mouth closing around him. His eyes sprang open and he sat upright, gripping her head in his hands and inexplicably trying to pull her off of him. He had no idea why he did that; he wanted perhaps nothing more at all than to have her please him with her mouth, but if he were to keep the situation from escalating rapidly, this course of action needed to be halted immediately.

But then her tongue began stroking around his tip within her mouth, and she began bobbing her head down his length, and he was lost. A groan ripped itself from Javert's mouth, a panicked sort of cry that indicated he was on the verge of losing control on so many levels. He said her name again, this time desperately, and his grip on her hair changed to one of encouragement.

After just a moment, he felt he was going to lose it, that he was going to explode in her mouth, and for some reason he did not want that. He wanted _her_, all of her, propriety be damned.

"Please come up here," Javert managed to croak, and Éponine crawled up from her knees obediently onto the bed. Javert pushed her gently onto her back, and she panted softly in the candlelight, her little breasts heaving with each breath. "You look more beautiful than ever," he told her, reaching out with one of his calloused, rough hands and cupping her left breast in it. He squeezed gently and she tipped her head back. When he brushed his thumb over the hardened nub of her nipple, she moaned shamelessly.

"More," she said, as she had before. "More, more, more."

"Tell me _exactly_ what you want, Éponine," Javert insisted, for he would do nothing at all that she did not desire him to do.

"I want you to take me. Please. Please, Inspector, claim me and take me. Make love to me." Her voice purred at him as she reached up with her thin fingers to coil them in his short hair now beginning to be soaked with nervous sweat.

Javert did not need to be asked twice. Not anymore. He put his legs between Éponine's and urged her to wrap her thin limbs around him. He leaned down and whispered gently in her ear,

"It will hurt a bit, love."

He was not certain what prompted him to call her that, but it seemed the most appropriate term of endearment at the moment. She nodded her understanding, though when Javert reached to guide himself into her and felt how sopping wet she was at her entrance for him, he thought perhaps it might not hurt as badly as it did for many unwilling girls on wedding nights to unwanted men.

He quivered at the gate to her womanhood for a moment as he thought, _Should I do this, or should I stop?_ But then Éponine was mewling her pleas beneath him for him to continue, pulling on his hips to try to urge him into her with her ankles, and grasping his shoulders with desperate hands, and Javert knew there was no turning back.

He pushed very gently into her, one inch at a time, and felt her hymen stretch and break against the push of his member. She let out a very soft cry, though she was clearly stifling her pain.

"Shall I stop?" Javert asked, though of course the deed was already done and she was ruined for all other men now.

"No! Of course not!" Éponine insisted, pulling him more deeply into her.

Javert stroked extremely slowly, carefully, cautiously in and out of Éponine, acutely aware that it was her very first time at this and that she was likely in much greater pain than she was letting on. Even so, even with his slow and deliberate pace, the pleasure was almost too much to bear and he quickened his motions. He feared he would finish too fast, that he would simply burst inside of her and that it would all be done in seconds.

So he thrust quickly, in and out over and again, leaning heavily on his elbows. He planted kisses on Éponine's lips as he moved, grunting and moaning without restraint now. After a while, his motions grew so fast that he grabbed onto her hips for leverage, pulling her against him at the same time that he pushed himself into her. He did not realize how hard he was thrusting until he felt her writhing beneath him, crying out loudly, and realized she was experiencing her own climax.

Damn him, he thought ruefully, he'd not thought of her pleasure one bit; he'd been so concerned with himself. Though, it seemed, she'd been just fine. Well, Javert told himself, the next time this happened – and, he assured himself, there would be many more times – he would need to focus on her gratification as well as his own.

He waited for her to come down from her mountain of enjoyment and resumed his thrusting, then anxiously pulled out of her when he felt his own moment fast approaching. He finished on her flat stomach, his seed bursting forth in short streams, another desperate moan ripping from his mouth. Javert waited for the spinning in his head to slow and stood shakily off the bed.

Embarrassed that he had left her lying there with his wet seed all over her, he reached for a rag on her washstand and wet it in the basin, trying to quickly clean off her skin. He noticed the blood between her legs and on the sheets and only then did the gravity of what he had done sink into his head. Éponine, meanwhile, seemed as though she were falling asleep.

As Javert stood beside the bed, looking upon the drowsy Éponine, she panted a bit and smiled gently at him, reaching for his sweaty face.

"Do you know, Inspector Javert," she whispered, "I believe you to be the most handsome man in all of Paris."

* * *

Éponine fell asleep first, which did not surprise Javert one bit. First of all, she seemed positively exhausted by their escapade. Conversely, the caper in which he had engaged had made Javert's mind reel with thoughts of all kinds that kept him awake for hours, until the fire had long burned out and the room had been plunged into total darkness.

He was propped up on Éponine's many pillows, still completely naked, with the blanket tucked up around his waist. Éponine was out cold beside him, her left arm cast carelessly across his torso, her fingers splayed on his stomach. Javert's left hand twisted absently through Éponine's undulating hair, petting and snaking their way through the waves over and again.

What on Earth had he done?

That was the first question to plague Javert's mind when Éponine had fallen asleep. He had plundered her as if he were some sort of ruthless Viking. He felt like a rogue, like a reprobate. Were his degenerate actions indicative of some sort of inherent evil in him? What sort of man would take an innocent flower and rip its petals off so callously?

Well, he considered, nearly every sort of man. What sort of man could affirm that he had _never_ touched a woman before he was wed, especially a man who had reached the age of fifty whilst still a bachelor? He was no widow, nor was he a divorcé; nay, he had never had a bride and therefore had not taken a woman to bed in ages.

Even then, it had been only twice. The first time had been with a barmaid in Toulon. He'd been ravenous in his inexperience, drunk on both ale and on the barmaid's buxom loveliness. That had satisfied him for years, until he had – to his eternal shame – taken a prostitute during his first year in Paris. That had been when he was depressed and frustrated at losing the trail of the criminal Jean Valjean. In the depths of his despair, he had descended into a three-day bender of debauchery that had included a woman's company. He hardly remembered the occasion.

Those previous encounters had the common denominator of alcohol. It was not a vice in which Javert commonly partook, for he disliked himself under its influence. He found himself to be too loose with words and actions when even mildly drunk, and the loss of control was always unsettling the next day.

This time… with Éponine… this time had been different. Javert had been perfectly sober. He had known exactly what he was doing and he had had plenty of time and opportunity to escape the situation and make a more wise and responsible choice. Instead, he had opted for depravity, for sin and corruption.

Even in the cold darkness of Éponine's bedroom, Javert felt his cheeks grow hot with shame. He glanced down at her face, pale and angelic in the dim moonlight, and his eyes fluttered shut as he fought away the burn of humiliated tears.

Well, he knew what he had done. That much was clear by the blood on the sheets. But what came next? What was a man to do who felt his own honor and that of a woman had been compromised by his actions? If he were an absolute scoundrel, he would tell her to leave, to go back to Saint Michel and never come back, never speak to him again. He would call her a succubus and a temptress and a whore. He would not care that nobody wanted her there. He would ignore the fact that he very much wanted her here.

But Javert was no such scoundrel. He could not deny in his mind or his soul that his affections for Éponine extended much deeper than the carnal. Certainly, his bodily attraction to her was undeniable, but there was more. He found her funny; he found her interesting. He found her to be an apt conversationalist and a very satisfactory companion. He believed her to have a good sense of right and wrong, deep in her spirit, and to know what was fair and just. He thought she was full of life and full of love for all the right things. She was plucky and confident and made him smile the way nothing had in countless years. Éponine would be, in short, the perfect wife.

Javert looked down at her again and smoothed her hair, which he'd mussed from his absent manipulating. In her sleep, Éponine's lips were turned up just the slightest bit, into a miniscule smile. Just as Javert looked down at her, he felt her fingers tighten around his abdomen and release, as if she were checking to make sure he was still there.

Javert's left hand drifted onto Éponine's bare shoulder and coursed down her thin arm, meeting her hand and latching fingers with hers. Éponine rolled over onto her other side, and since Javert did not want to release her hand, he was forced to lie further down, sideways, against Éponine's back. He felt her bare backside against his lap beneath the blankets, and felt the first stirrings of arousal deep within his gut. He willed the feeling away and released Éponine's hand, but when he did, she mewled in her sleep, sounding upset. Javert curled his arm back around her and linked their right hands, kissing the back of her head gently.

She moved a bit a few minutes later, shifting in her sleep, but the feel of her rear against his member made Javert hiss into the darkness of the room. He slid his hips backward and turned a little bit to lie on his back so that Éponine's intoxicating aroma was not so near his face.

His positioning did not help the images coursing through his mind, reliving the previous night's activities over and again. Tearing her dress off over her head, kissing her fiercely, the feel of her mouth around his hardness, the sight of her coming as he thrust roughly into her. It was too much, and Javert felt himself grow hard again beneath the sheets. Soon his erection was full-blown and aching for attention. This would not do at all.

He sighed into the black night and wished he were not so entranced by her, prayed to be released from her spell. She made him want to do – and encouraged him to do – things he would never have considered doing with any other woman… things like fornicate and then spend the entire night naked in bed together. At that maddening thought, Javert released Éponine gently and slid silently from the bed. He was going back to his own bedroom, he thought, where he belonged. This was, after all, Éponine's room. It may be his house, but they were not man and wife, and to share a bed for the entire night after making love seemed to take the immodesty over the edge.

Just as he opened the door to leave, he heard her little voice from behind him, cracking from sleep,

"Where are you going?"

He inhaled deeply and shut his eyes for a moment, realizing with some embarrassment that his entire rear half was bare and revealed to her. It was one thing to see one another nude in the throes of passion; it was quite another to do so in the bleariness of half-sleep and it would be even more awkward to do so in the morning.

Javert looked over his shoulder, unwilling to reveal his still-erect member to her, and murmured,

"I am returning to my own chamber, Mademoiselle."

"Good God, man! Will you truly address me so?" Éponine abruptly sounded more awake, and Javert saw her push herself up onto her elbows and rub sleep out of her eyes. "Do you have no idea… oh, I can not even say. Very well, go!"

She waved him away, and Javert licked his lips, feeling quite disordered. When he spoke, he faced the door and bowed his head. "I'm quite sure I do not know why you are so upset, but may we discuss it in the morning?"

"Why will you not turn and face me?" Éponine demanded, now sounding frustrated.

"I'm afraid I am currently confronted with a difficulty unique to the male gender," Javert said delicately, "and I do not wish to dismay or disgust you by turning around."

"Oh."

That was all she said… 'Oh,' and Javert knew that she had understood every word he had said.

A long, awkward moment passed, and then Javert murmured an uncomfortable farewell and opened the door wider to leave.

"Wait!" Éponine called after him. "Can I help you with… your difficulty?"

Once more, Javert shut his eyes in embarrassment and gulped. He still did not turn around.

"Of course you _can, _Éponine, but I do not think that you _should_."

He shivered in the cold night air, instinctively clutching at his member as though he were doing so protectively. Did he want her again? Of course he did, but to fornicate again with her… that would only reinforce his depravity.

"Please come back to bed," Éponine entreated, and her voice was so dripping with coaxing and kindheartedness that Javert could scarcely keep himself from vaulting back to her. He instead turned around slowly, his eyes on Éponine's in the shadowy moonlight; his embarrassment vanished when he saw the suppliant look on her face. Her wide brown eyes were positively imploring him to return to the warm comfort of her embrace.

Javert sank back onto the soft mattress, burying himself beneath the heavy blankets and lying on his side facing Éponine. She abruptly leaned in close to him and scissored her legs through his so that they were ensnared in a tangled web of limbs. She guided his right hand between them and down to her entrance, which was dry and not even slightly swollen. She was not aroused – yet. Javert licked his fingers so that they would glide more easily and then returned them to her entry, stroking the folds and creases there gently.

As he did, Éponine's breath hitched, and her eyelids fluttered shut. Very quickly, Javert felt her become wet beneath his touch, felt a rush of moisture and a delicate throbbing beneath his fingers. He planted little kisses on her lips as he stroked her orifice, but she scarcely returned them as she bucked her hips against his hand.

By the second, Javert could feel himself growing harder than he would have thought possible. His organ ached so desperately for attention that it was almost excruciating. Finally, he could take it no longer and, without warning, placed his tip at her very ready opening.

"Mmm?" With one sound against her lips, Javert asked permission to enter her, and Éponine nodded frantically. Javert drove himself into her in one push, feeling himself enter her far more deeply than he had when he'd been atop her. He cried out, a wordless exclamation of pleasure, and wrapped his arm around Éponine to hold onto her lower back. He pulled her closer against him, feeling the soft cushions of her breasts push against his chest. Her leg hooked around him and her calf stroked his backside as he thrust vigorously. The friction was unbelievable; Javert could feel Éponine's tight, wet warmth pulling him in with each plunge. He kissed her intensely as he thrust, his mouth searching hers for an unattainable fulfillment of his hunger. She raked her nails ever-so-gently along his back, sending shivers up his spine, and she moaned and sighed into his kisses.

After a few minutes, she shuddered hard and he felt her entrance contracting rhythmically around his member as she climaxed. The sensation of her spasms on his shaft was too much, and Javert yanked himself out of her just in time. He came on the sheets, leaving a rather hideous puddle of his seed soaking into the mattress, and it occurred to Javert that all these bodily fluids would necessitate a thorough washing. In fact, he would probably just want to put entirely new sheets upon the bed.

* * *

Javert mentioned this notion to Pauline the next day before he left for work.

"Pauline," he said cautiously, "please put fresh linens on the Mademoiselle's bed."

She eyed him with disdain and suspicion. "Where are the dirty ones, Monsieur?" she asked – or, rather, demanded, "so that I might wash them?"

"They're gone," Javert answered simply, for he'd cut them up and burned them early that morning. He glanced at the clock and realized he truly did need to leave. "Fresh ones for tonight, if you please," he repeated, and put on his dense coat, for a cold rain was falling outside.

"Of course, Monsieur l'Inspecteur." Pauline nodded deferentially, but Javert was not so thick as to miss the vindictive look in her eyes.

Once again, Javert was embarrassed as he walked to the police station. Of course, today of all days he had a foot patrol. It was chilly and pouring and very unpleasant outside, and he had to traipse through the muddy streets on foot in search of criminal activity.

But when he arrived at the police station, his superior officer informed him that today he would be completing paperwork inside. Javert usually dreaded such monotonous toil, preferring the practical work of patrols. Today, though, as he glanced out the window and saw that, somehow, the rate of rainfall had increased, Javert was grateful for the chance to stay indoors.

As he completed paperwork including warrants, affidavits, witness profiles, and evidence inventory, Javert felt his lids grow heavy from boredom. The grind wore on for hours, until Javert neared the end of his shift. He only felt himself perk up when his eyes scanned cursorily across a page and saw the name of the suspect for whom an arrest warrant was being issued: Éponine Jondrette.

Startled and abruptly afraid, Javert struggled not to visibly panic as he read the warrant.

_Mlle. ÉPONINE JONDRETTE is wanted for pickpocketing in Rue Saint-Hyancinthe on the 3rd of January 1831._

_A Mme. Lenore Nouvette has declared that a young woman since determined to be Mlle. ÉPONINE JONDRETTE stole from her the amount of six francs whilst Mme. Nouvette returned home. Mlle. JONDRETTE was witnessed fleeing the scene of the crime in the direction of Saint Michel._

_All inspectors and officers of the law are instructed to be aware of the dangerous nature of Mlle. JONDRETTE, as she has been wanted before for myriad criminal offenses including but not limited to petty theft, attempted robbery, and resisting arrest._

_The accused is described as a thin and stunted young woman, seventeen years of age, with dark brown hair and brown eyes._

_Upon sight and seizure of Mlle. ÉPONINE JONDRETTE, officers of the law are to immediately take her to the nearest police station, from which she will be transported to the Palais de Justice for trial and sentencing._

_Long live the King._

Javert struggled to breathe normally, tried to steady his shaking hand, and put quill to paper to sign the warrant. He considered tearing it up into tiny pieces. He thought of taking it home and burning it. Then he thought perhaps he might simply inform his superior officer that the girl had been informing for the police and that they must be mistaken, that she could not have committed any crimes.

Ultimately, he knew she had. Before he had taken her home, Éponine had been little more than a street urchin who had turned to crime out of desperation. She had not known any better, Javert told himself angrily. She had not understood the importance of the law. But that had only been a few weeks ago. He had not created her anew in those few weeks. She may wear more bourgeois clothing now, may sleep in a finer bed and eat richer food, but she was still at her core the same spindly scamp Javert had swept up from the streets.

And, to think, he'd considered marrying her! Simply because he'd spoiled her body, he'd thought of destroying his reputation by marrying a criminal! Javert gritted his teeth at the thought. How maddening this girl was, taking his modesty and his emotions and casting them into the wind when she knew full well that she had violated his trust.

Javert decided that, after all, he _would_ bring the warrant home.

He stormed through his door at five-fifteen in the evening and saw Éponine sitting at the dining room table, scratching something onto a page with a quill. She looked up with a smile when the door flung open, but her smile vanished when she saw the angry look upon Javert's face.

"What's wrong?" she asked immediately.

"Would you care to explain something to me?" Javert asked viciously, not bothering to remove his boots as he tracked rainwater across the wooden floor. "Would you care to explain why I was required to sign a warrant today with your name upon it? No, not even your _real_ name! Your pseudonym, Mademoiselle Jondrette." He spat the last two words as if they were poison and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He pulled the warrant from the pocket inside his coat and unfolded it, slamming it down upon the dining room table in front of Éponine.

She startled and took the paper, her face wracked with horror as she began reading. Javert's mind was a tempest of rage and confusion, betrayal and scruples, as he stormed off into the kitchen in search of a bottle of Génépi, the herb-infused grain alcohol that Pauline kept for cooking. The last time he'd felt the need to be drunk, it had been when Jean Valjean had escaped his grasp. Now, he needed to dull the storm of emotions swirling around the infuriating woman he'd brought into his home.

Javert located the half-empty bottle of Génépi and uncorked it, knocking it back and gulping down the scorching liquid. It was like fire down his throat and he nearly choked, nearly vomited from the taste and burn. It was bitter and horrible and perfect for the occasion. Javert took three massive swigs and then banged the bottle down on the butcher block, astonished that it didn't shatter with the force he used.

He strode furiously back into the dining room and saw Éponine staring at him with red-rimmed eyes. She was holding out the paper and a solitary tear escaped her eye as she began to speak, but Javert cut her off.

"This is no time for tears. Save them for court, Mademoiselle; perhaps they will be of some use to you there."

The cruelty of his words only made Éponine cry harder, and she began to positively heave with sobs.

"I know what you are going to say," Javert insisted. "Your father made you do it. Your father made you steal and break the law, but no one can truly force another person to do anything. We all have free will, Éponine, and you _chose_ to commit crime after crime."

"I will _never_ do it again!" Éponine swore, her voice shaking violently through her tears. "I will never steal, never deceive, never violate the law in any way! I know, I know it is so very important to you, and -"

"It ought to be important to _everyone_!" Javert cried. Why couldn't she see? Why could she not see that the law was just and would reward those who obeyed it? But, then, he looked at her – truly looked at her – and saw how genuine her remorse was. That was clear in her glistening eyes.

"I do not want to be a criminal," Éponine asserted, her voice a cracked whisper. She let the warrant fall from her hands and it floated to the floor. "I want to be a happy woman. I want a life of joy and some measure of comfort. I want to enjoy my life, and I did not enjoy taking other people's things, Monsieur."

Javert steeled his jaw, gritting his teeth again. Could he believe her? Was she actually sorry? He always said to himself and to others, 'Once a thief, always a thief.' Could it be that he was mistaken about this one – or was it that he'd formed an emotional attachment and was not able to see clearly through the haze of attraction to the truth?

"Do you know," he blurted suddenly, "that I was on the verge of asking you to be my wife, Éponine?"

His words came out with more hurt in them than he had intended. His voice sounded weaker than he had meant it to sound; he'd wanted to sound angry and intimidating and instead sounded like a betrayed, broken man.

He bent down and picked up the warrant off the floor, giving only a cursory glance to the dumbfounded expression on Éponine's face in reaction to his words. She looked more than flummoxed; she looked positively shocked, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

Javert had no idea what she thought of what he'd said, whether she was flattered and happy or horrified and disgusted. Neither did he particularly care. He had said all he'd needed to say.

He strode quickly to the fireplace across the dining room and cast the warrant into the flames, watching as the paper curled and blackened and disappeared.

* * *

"Why did you just do that?" Éponine sounded genuinely confused. "Aren't you going to need that when you take me to the Palais de Justice?"

"You're not going to the Palais de Justice, Mademoiselle," Javert said in a low voice, his gaze still locked on the fire. "You're staying here. No one knows you're here."

Harboring a criminal. It was, perhaps, the worst thing Javert had ever done in his life, and yet he felt little remorse about the prospect now that he was in the same room as Éponine. It did not help that the liquor was starting to settle into his bloodstream and its effects were beginning to become evident.

"No one knows," he said again, turning to Éponine, "except, possibly, your ex-lover."

Éponine gulped and folded her hands on the table. "Marius was never my lover," she insisted, shaking her head. "I've told you that, and I should say that last night it was quite clear I'd never been with anyone."

Javert frowned and stepped away from the fire. He shucked his heavy coat off of his shoulders and flung it over the back of a chair. His uniform was heavy and wet, soaked through with rainwater, and Javert was very cold. He shivered as he ambled down the hallway to his bedroom. He would go without supper tonight; he could not stand the thought or feeling of being in the same space as Éponine at the moment. He sensed that she was following him and he whirled around, pointing his finger at her heatedly.

"You dare step foot in my bedroom tonight, and you will find yourself bereft of a place to sleep besides a cell in the police station." He took a threatening step toward her and looked down his height with wild eyes.

Éponine looked rather frightened and nodded quickly, taking a timid step away from him and holding out her hands as if to shield herself. It occurred to Javert that she might think him about to strike her, and he lowered his pointed finger. He straightened his wet woolen jacket and cleared his throat. He may be stern, and he may be unyielding, but he was not one to hit a woman, and he thought it important that she know that.

"You are in no bodily danger from me, Mademoiselle," he said as gently as he could manage, though his words were beginning to slur from the liquor.

"I'm sorry," she said plaintively. "I'm so, so sorry, and I promise you I have changed – will continue to change! Please, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, do not arrest me -"

"My name is Javert," he said very softly, bowing his head, "and I have no intention of arresting you, Éponine."

He took a step backward and opened his bedroom door, walking through it and trying not to look at Éponine's anxious expression as he shut the door in her face.

He thought of turning the key and locking the door so that she could not physically come in, so that she would not force him to make good on his threat. The very last thing he wanted tonight was to drag Éponine to a police station and turn her in, admit to burning the warrant, and have to tell the truth about how he'd found the suspect.

No, he admonished himself sarcastically; he would much prefer to break the law. The only thing he had ever trusted, the only rock to which he had clung in the violent storm that had been his life: the Law. To where would he cling now? Rather, he might ask, to whom?

He felt lost and hopeless and completely alone despite the fact that there was someone else in the house. He had no idea what to do next. What if she fled in the middle of the night – left the house and ran away? He would have to hunt her down, find her and seize her and take her to be sentenced for her crimes. Worse yet, what if she stayed? How could he possibly reconcile his duty as a policeman with his obligations as a woman's lover? Did a lover even _have_ obligations? A husband was bound to be loyal, to protect his wife. Was a paramour compelled by such responsibilities?

The liquor made the thoughts swirl in a directionless jumble in Javert's mind, but at least it helped him fall asleep a few hours later. Javert was quite certain that without the drink he'd have had no chance whatsoever of sleeping.

In the morning, Éponine's bedroom door was ajar and Javert could see her sitting at her little desk. She had not left. She had not fled. She had stayed the night. Javert had the day off of work, but he put his uniform and coat on as a matter of habit.

"I am off to Saint Michel," Javert called to Éponine, staying well clear of her door, "to clarify a few things with Monsieur Pontmercy."

Éponine's head whirled around and she stared at the opening in the doorway with shock in her wide eyes.

"What are you going to say?" she asked, her voice little more than a squeak.

"That is between us," Javert answered, and he turned to go.

"Wait!" Éponine called, and she dashed across the room with a little scrap of paper in her hand. "Please give him this." She flung open the door and handed the folded paper to Javert. "It is for his eyes alone," she warned, and Javert noticed that she'd sealed it sloppily with candle wax.

Javert narrowed his eyes but nodded, and departed the house. As he walked briskly toward Saint Michel, he could think of nothing but the letter that positively lit his coat pocket on fire with its insistence to be read.

He could think of many reasons why he ought not to read it, the most important being Éponine's trust and privacy. But then, he could think of several better reasons why he should read it. What if Éponine was involved in Marius' politics, and she was warning him in a letter than Javert was onto him and his friends? What if she was asking Marius to come to Javert's house and whisk her away to an escape from her criminally wanted status? The letter could contain all manner of seditious and dangerous material, and Javert felt it was his duty as an Inspector to read the letter. He considered it gathering evidence.

He paused in an alleyway and extracted the letter from his coat, tearing gently at the wax seal. No matter how carefully he worked to peel the wax, it was evident that the letter had been opened. Javert gave up and started to read.

_Monsieur Marius,_

_I hope this letter finds you well and that you are progressing adequately in your studies. I write to tell you that you will be seeing no more of me, as I have met a man who seems to care quite deeply for me. I hope to be with him as I myself care for him more than I can properly say._

_Think fondly of the days we spent as friends, Monsieur Marius. I wish you nothing but happiness._

_Éponine_

Javert was instantly more ashamed than he'd ever been in his life – more ashamed than he'd felt after taking Éponine's virginity, and more ashamed than when he realized he'd let Jean Valjean slip through his fingers.

It was one thing to know Éponine had committed petty theft; it was quite another thing altogether to accuse her of political subversion or of disloyalty to him.

This was no warning letter, no cry for help. It was not even a love letter. Perhaps it was, though it was more a love letter to Javert than anything else. It was simply a note between friends saying goodbye, and Javert had ruined it by breaking the seal and expressing his distrust.

Feeling acutely humbled, Javert walked a bit more slowly to Saint Michel and reached Gorbeau House with a sense of foreboding. He waited outside the house, watching the people of the streets go about their wretched lives, until Marius stepped up the street and prepared to enter the house.

"Monsieur Pontmercy," Javert said quietly, and gestured for Marius to follow him into a tavern.

When the two were seated at a table, with Marius looking positively terrified, Javert handed him Éponine's letter and said,

"I was instructed to bring you this, Monsieur, though I confess I read it when I was explicitly asked not to do so."

Marius looked curiously at the broken seal and opened the letter, seeming to read its words three or four times before he asked,

"Are you the man, Inspector?"

Javert knew what he meant. Éponine had made reference to a man in her letter, a man in whom she had expressed interest for a long-term association. Of course, he was that man. Javert just nodded at Marius and folded his hands on the table.

"Well, I wish you all the best. Thank you for the letter." Marius tucked the letter into his coat pocket and smiled rather sadly. "Where is she?" he asked curiously.

Javert shook his head. "That is part of the reason I am here. If, for some reason, Monsieur, you do ever lay eyes on Éponine, it is very important that you pretend you do not know her. I ask this not for personal reasons but because she is wanted for petty crimes I'm sure you know she has committed. To protect her, if ever you cared for her as a friend, I beseech you to never speak of her or look for her."

Marius furrowed his brow but nodded, clearing his throat a little. "Will she be arrested?" he asked.

"I am doing everything in my power to ensure that she will not be," Javert told Marius. Marius bit his lip, and then Javert said, "I must also advise you, Monsieur, to find new friends. The ones with whom you met at Notre Dame will only guide you to trouble."

It only later occurred to Javert that Marius had looked genuinely saddened by the news of Éponine's permanent exodus, and that he reacted only slightly to Javert's mention of his political activities.

* * *

At six o'clock that evening, Javert brought Éponine a plate of potatoes and beef and placed it on her writing desk before her. She looked up at him with pleading eyes, as if she were waiting for him to tell her he absolved her of her sins. Javert said nothing to her and simply poured her a glass of wine and set the bottle down on the desk before turning and leaving the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

He went in two hours later to fetch the dirty dishes and found that Éponine had hardly picked at her food and was asleep in her dress on top of the blankets on her bed. What he did notice was that the bottle of wine was completely empty, and he wondered if she had passed out on the bed.

He tried to rouse her, shaking her shoulder gently, and she rolled over to face him, blinking sleep out of half-crossed eyes.

"Hello," she drawled.

"Why did you drink the entire bottle of wine?" Javert demanded angrily, though he was hardly expecting a coherent or rational answer. "You hardly ate your food and now you're drunk? This is too much, Éponine. I had heard you quite liked your liquor."

He crossly snatched the empty wine bottle and the plate of food from the desk and stormed down the hallway to get rid of them. He returned to his study, where he had previously been reading a book before the fire, and plopped down into the wingback. She could sleep the whole night in her dress for all he cared.

Five minutes later, Éponine had managed to stagger to the study door and leaned heavily on various objects for support as she crossed the room to Javert's chair.

"You are permitted to drink away your sorrows and I am not?" she demanded irritably. Her words were mush.

"It's not a terribly ladylike thing to do, Mademoiselle Jondrette," Javert said testily, chewing her name like poor-tasting food. "Furthermore, it is an ungrateful and discourteous thing to do to a host."

"Host, or captor, Monsieur l'Inspecteur?" she laughed sardonically. "If I were to leave, would you not pursue me for arrest?" Her eyes welled, but she angrily swiped away any tears that tried to form.

"Do you want to leave?" Javert asked quietly, though of course she was in no state to properly answer that question. He thought she looked completely pathetic at the moment, almost back to the urchin-like disheveled appearance with which she had arrived. He ought not to be posing her any serious queries.

"Of course I do not want to leave," Éponine spat, "which you know full well from my letter to Marius."

"I…" Javert began, but found himself unable to lie outright to her. He could not verbally deny that he had read the letter.

"You read it," Éponine nodded. "I know."

"Is it true?" Javert asked, although he knew that he was again asking her questions she was not currently fit to answer. "Do you care for me, Éponine?"

"I thought so," she admitted. She gulped, and her bleary drunken eyes welled again. This time she made no effort to stem their brimming. She swayed a bit on her feet and Javert worried that she might fall, so Javert stood quickly and took a long stride to her, holding out his hands to steady her shoulders. She looked to where his hands touched her body and then smiled very sadly indeed up to Javert. "Damn you," she whispered. "How do you do that?"

Javert was confused by her words and shook his head, furrowing his brow.

"How do you choose just the right moment to leap in and save me, every time?" Éponine asked. "I never needed any saving. How do you look at me with what I'm sure is no more than worry in your eyes and manage to convince me it is something much more complex?"

Her words were making little sense to Javert now; they seemed to be drunken ramblings, and she looked positively distraught. So, he reached beneath her knees with one arm and placed the other behind her back, scooping her light body easily up into a cradling position. She squealed a little when he literally swept her off of her feet, and he carried her down the hallway into her bedroom.

He directed her to stand in front of him when he sat upon her bed so that he could unfasten the buttons of her dress.

"Are you going to make love to me?" Éponine asked, though she sounded more apprehensive than eager.

"No, of course I am not going to 'make love' to you," Javert snapped. "I am helping you prepare for bed so you might sleep off the drink."

"Oh."

He stripped her down until she wore only her chemise and then urged her underneath the blankets. She watched him from the bed as he hung her dress in the wardrobe and placed her underclothes in a neat stack on the chair at her writing desk.

When he turned around to bid her a good night, she was already asleep.

* * *

Javert rode Rivage around the city the next night and felt as though he were going insane. Every older man looked to him like Jean Valjean. Every young student seemed to him a mutinous radical. Every poor woman was a prostitute and every dandy a bounty hunter searching for Éponine. He was completely paranoid, and he had no idea why.

Well, perhaps he had some idea why. He'd not slept at all the night before, and now he had been awake for going on thirty-six hours. The shadows in the night jumped out at him and the slightest noises made him startle.

He kept riding Rivage around on patrol until he internally complained that his shift felt particularly long this night. Then he looked at his pocket-watch and realized he'd been riding about for an hour and a half past the end of his shift. It was ten thirty. He cantored Rivage back to the police stables, shaking off his drowsy confusion, and dismounted. There was no one else at the stable this time of night besides the overnight caretaker, who seemed to have fallen asleep at his post.

As Javert hastily swirled the currycomb over Rivage's sweaty hide, he heard a rustling in the shadows. Probably just his paranoid imagination, he told himself, and tried to ignore it. But then a moment later, he heard it again, and he whisked his sword from its sheath and held it at the ready to strike.

"Who is there?" he demanded. "Show yourself!"

Rivage's stall was illuminated only by the light of a dim candle lantern that Javert had hung, so he squinted to see as a figure stepped out of the shadows.

"Éponine!" Javert hissed, looking frantically around. "What on Earth are you doing here?" He snatched her arm and yanked her into the stall, out of anyone else's possible visibility. She wore her gray cape and would not be recognizable to anyone else, but he knew exactly who she was at first glance.

"You were very late coming home." Éponine sounded like a fretful mother hen. No, Javert corrected himself. She sounded like a wife. "I began to worry and thought perhaps something had happened to you, so I thought I would look in the most likely places first."

"You _mustn't_ be out of the house until I can determine how to get the warrant on you lifted!" Javert insisted, seizing her wrists and dragging her back into the corner of Rivage's stall. He hurried to throw a blanket over Rivage and snuffed out the lantern.

It was Éponine who led the way home in the darkness, leaping invisibly from shadow to shadow, and Javert realized that she never would have been caught coming to look for him. But, then, he himself had caught her the first day he'd met her, hadn't he? She was not invincible.

When they were in the safety of Javert's home, he yanked off his boots and shucked his coat, unbuttoning his jacket as he walked briskly down the hallway to his bedroom. He said again to Éponine as he moved,

"I do not want you to leave the house until a permanent solution has been figured."

"What sort of solution?" Éponine demanded, following him down the hallway and into his bedroom. Javert would have liked some privacy as he removed his jacket, but he turned to her in his white shirt and trousers and said,

"I can think of only two resolutions, Mademoiselle. One would be for you to flee the city and never return. The other would be for you to marry, thus taking on another name removed from Jondrette and obtaining legal documentation that you are _not_ Éponine Jondrette. Meanwhile, I will move to file an affidavit affirming your help to the police department while under the identity of Éponine Thénardier and ensure that there is no warrant on issue."

Éponine's mouth fell open so that she looked a bit like a fish, and she peeled the hood of her cape back from her head.

"Leave or marry; those are my options?" she repeated. Javert nodded hesitantly. "You do realize this is the third time you have mentioned marrying me? First when you had me pinned against a wall, then right before you threw my warrant into a fire, and now." She bit her lip.

"And?" Javert held out his arms, feeling helpless and very vulnerable to rejection.

"And I think I still have some friends in Montfermeil," Éponine said sadly, drumming her fingers on the back of a wingback chair and chewing on her lip.

Javert closed the gap between them, his heart racing and his stomach sinking.

"Then you will never marry me?" he asked, taking her wrists gently and guiding her hands to his cheeks. She trembled a bit against him, as if she were very nervous indeed, but she shook her head a little and whispered,

"How could I marry a man I hardly know?"

"Strangers have married for millennia, Éponine," Javert told her, "and you and I are hardly strangers. I want nothing more than to keep you safe and content. I swear the very last thing I shall take from you will be your independence. You and I will grow to love one another, and I shall spend all of my days thinking of your happiness."

He leaned his face down to hers and kissed her, more deeply than he had intended to do, for his own words had made him desperate to drink her in.

"Over the last few days I have been terrified that I would lose you," he told her, "and I have never been so frightened in my life. Stay with me forever. Marry me."

He kissed her again, grasping her hair tightly in his hand and backing her up against the wall. Her fingers absently worked at the buttons on his shirt and when he broke their kiss, she grinned at him and said,

"Ask me nicely."

"Please, Éponine," Javert murmured, brushing his lips against hers, "Will you please marry me?"

She kissed him back then, with more fire in her kiss than ever before. When she spoke, her whisper seared through his chest like a shot.

"Yes."


	4. Chapter 4

Javert strode more confidently through the streets of Saint Michel two weeks later than he had done in previous weeks. There was a slight spring in his step; he caught himself humming slightly whilst traversing an alley and had to force himself to stop.

It was only when he saw a crowd gathered in rue Palmarque that he was jolted back to reality. It was midday, and cloudy, and unseasonably warm, so the ragged denizens of the purlieus were out in their droves. They all seemed to be gathered around something, and a loud argument seemed to be taking place.

Javert sprang into action. He blew his whistle loudly and ran toward the crowd, not heeding the fact that he was on patrol alone and was vastly outnumbered by the horde of slum-dwellers. At the sound of his approach, the crowd parted like the Red Sea, and Javert saw what they had been observing. A man lay bleeding and coughing on the street; another man whose shirt was covered in blood was being restrained by several large males. On the ground beside the apparent victim, a knife, its blade shining red, glinted weakly in the dull light.

Javert rushed to the scene and quickly picked up the knife so that no one could use it on him. It was proper procedure in a situation such as this to leave the weapon where it lay, but the conditions were not ideal for protocol. Javert shoved the blade in his belt and knelt beside the bleeding man. Instantly, he recognized him to be Monsieur Thénardier – Éponine's father.

"Must I even ask what happened?" Javert groaned, shutting his eyes and gulping. He glanced up to where a few burly men restrained the obvious perpetrator and sighed.

"That man – P-P-Prujond!" Thénardier pointed frantically at the controlled offender. "He stabbed me in the hip for no reason at all!"

"Not true!" the man called Prujond cried, fighting against his captors. "He tried to take me money right out me pockets, he did, while I slept at a table in the tavern. If I hadn't woken up, he'd 'ave cleaned me out! Lucky I had my blade!"

"I shall take that as a confession." Javert raised his eyebrows and sighed again. He stood and wiped his hands on his trousers. "You," he said, gesturing down to Thénardier, "Can you get to a hospital or shall I send a cart?"

"I'll see a doctor myself, thank you very much," Thénardier mumbled.

"And will you be wanting to press charges against this man?" Javert asked astringently, waving his hand toward Prujond. "You will need to refute, of course, his allegation that you were on the verge of committing robbery _again_, Monsieur Jondrette."

He only used the man's pseudonym for the sake of Éponine; was only letting him go for her benefit, and Thénardier, of course, shook his head no.

"Then clear out of the streets," Javert demanded to the crowd, "and I'll have no more disturbances today."

Everyone dispersed except for Thénardier, who still lay wounded on the street. Javert reluctantly extended a hand to help him stand, and the man nodded gratefully.

"I will have you know, Monsieur, that I happen to know your daughter is quite safe and happy," Javert told Thénardier very quietly, murmuring the words into his ear as the wounded man stood.

It was a risky move, revealing that he knew of both Éponine's absence and her whereabouts. But he thought it important that her father know she was secure, that she was cared for. Somehow, in the depths of his soul, he wanted to believe that her own parents would care she was alive.

But Thénardier just shrugged when he stood and smiled crookedly.

"Don't make no difference to me what 'Ponine does with her life," he declared snidely. "She weren't ever anything but a telltale little snoop, anyway. We knows she was watching for you, Inspector. We knows you was paying her. She's lucky she left, she is. She wouldn't have lasted too much longer here; no, sir."

Javert was horrified. Was her own father honestly standing before him, declaring that he would have injured – killed? – his own daughter for being a spy? Furthermore, it had been Javert to put her in harm's way. Thank God Javert had come for her when he had.

Enraged and disgusted, Javert released Thénardier's arm, which he'd been holding to aid the man in standing. When Javert let go, Thénardier tumbled down back into the mud, clutching at the stab wound in his leg and howling miserably. As he marched away, Javert thought to himself that the injury the man had suffered had not cut nearly deep enough.

* * *

It had been two weeks since Éponine had agreed to marry Javert, two weeks since they had made love, and they'd hardly discussed either event. Éponine did not seem to want to do so, and Javert did not want to press. But after two weeks, he felt the need to consider both occurrences.

"Will you join me in the study?" he asked her one night after they'd finished supper, and Éponine curiously followed him down the hall and sat in one of the wingback chairs as he built up a fire. She was wearing another calico dress, unassuming brick red, elegant in its simplicity. Javert glanced back from the fire as he prodded it to encourage its growth. He smiled gently at her, and she stared inquisitively back at him.

Finally, Javert sat beside her. After a long moment, Éponine asked,

"Is something the matter?"

"Two weeks ago, I asked you to marry me, and you replied that you would."

"Yes." Éponine nodded, but tore her gaze from his eyes and looked into the fire. Javert reached over and tipped her chin back toward him. This was a conversation he wanted to have face-to-face.

"Are we still betrothed, Éponine?" he asked.

"I have no dowry," Éponine shrugged, and Javert was reminded of the horrible conversation between his two coworkers. Why on Earth would Éponine think that a dowry would matter to him at all? Most of the point of this marriage would be to provide properly for Éponine.

"That is perfectly agreeable, as I have no desire to profit from matrimony," Javert answered her.

"It would have to be in secret," Éponine specified. "No announcement. No religious ceremony. No bann. No party."

"Absolutely none," Javert agreed. "Merely a speedy visit to the city clerk's office, our signatures upon a piece of paper, your legal name change, and it is done."

Éponine narrowed her eyes and looked away from him again, into the fire. Javert wondered why she did that – why, when she was nervous or rattled, she coped by looking away. He suspected it was because she feared crying when she was flustered, and she did not like to let him see her cry.

"I do not understand why a piece of paper can bear such importance," she argued. "All it does is bind me like a chain, and yet it is my permission for physical intimacy?"

Javert furrowed his brow, confused by her logic. He shook his head.

"It is an agreement, a promise," he explained, as if she were slow. "It is a vow of loyalty, and more than that, it will serve to legally protect you, Éponine. And, yes, whether either of us cares for the social convention, that piece of paper is the 'permission for physical intimacy.'"

It was true that they had hardly laid a finger on one another in two weeks. A brush of the hand here as she helped him put his coat on. A swift kiss as he left for work. A quick embrace upon his return home. Admittedly, the kisses and the embraces had grown a bit longer and deeper over the past few days, though whether out of frustration or complacent comfort, Javert could not say.

He was speaking to her again of marriage tonight because the past two weeks had only affirmed in his mind how badly he wished to marry her. Éponine had proven herself to be amusing and full of spirit, yet gentle and concerned. Each day she asked him how his work had been, and each day she listened thoughtfully to his stories and conversed actively with him about his toil.

"Then I have no idea what the delay is," Éponine said, jarring Javert from his reverie.

"I beg your pardon?" Javert asked absently. She eyed him suspiciously.

"Why do we not go tomorrow?" she asked.

"Tomorrow?" Javert's eyes went round. True, he did not work the next day, but… married? Tomorrow? Suddenly _he_ was the one with qualms. He had never valued his bachelorhood too terribly much, but he would have liked at least a bit of warning before it was snatched away from him by the stroke of a quill. "It's a bit soon," he croaked.

"You may not have it both ways," Éponine admonished him. "You lecture me about my apathy on the matter, then when I express enthusiasm, you are flummoxed. Which is it? Tomorrow, or must we wait indefinitely?"

"Tomorrow," Javert answered with a sudden burst of certainty in his voice. "Most assuredly tomorrow."

* * *

The clerk who issued the marriage certificate performed what could hardly be called a ceremony, reading his script in a dull, monotone voice that bored even Javert on his own wedding day.

At Éponine's insistence, he had not worn his uniform, but rather a simple morning suit. It had nothing do to with looks and everything to do with being conspicuous. Éponine wore one of her basic calico dresses, unadorned and unembellished, and Javert thought that suited her just fine.

As they signed their names on the paper, Javert thought they were quite a pair indeed. He signed his own mononym, explaining to the clerk that he had no separate first and last names.

He had offered to Éponine to keep her own surname, but she had insisted that Madame Thénardier was her mother and that Madame Jondrette was not a real person. Javert had even suggested that she make up a surname for herself, but Éponine had then insisted that she was tired of pseudonyms.

So, she dropped the surname altogether and became simply "Éponine." He was known to society as "Inspector Javert"; she would be known as "Madame Éponine." That was how they would present her, they had decided. She wanted nothing more to do with her own family, and seeing as 'Javert' was neither a first nor a last name, she could no more easily adopt it as her own name than she could take someone else's Christian name in marriage.

The clerk seemed horribly confused by this arrangement, but he at last allowed them to sign the marriage certificate as "Javert" and "Éponine."

They returned home to an empty home; Pauline had already left for the day and they'd decided they would simply inform her tomorrow that they had wed. Javert took his copy of the marriage certificate and filed it with all of his important papers, quietly moving through the study as Éponine padded down the hall to her bedroom.

A few minutes later, he pushed open the creaky door to see her reading at her desk in the bright sunlight shining through the window. Her spindly hand twirled absently through a lock of her hair, and Javert realized that she was neither troubled nor thrilled by the fact that they were now man and wife. It was rather inconsequential to her, he thought, because, as she had said many times, it was 'just a piece of paper.'

Javert rapped his knuckles on the door to get her attention and said softly, "Madame?"

She turned around and smiled gently at that; she gave him a playful little look and nodded. "Husband?"

"May I interest you in a luncheon?" Javert asked, inhaling deeply and getting a waft of her lavender scent even from across the room. As they ate their soup, Javert asked her, "Are you intending to keep your belongings in the red and gold bedroom?"

"I am," Éponine answered plainly, "providing you are amenable."

"Of course." Javert realized he would have to let her adjust gradually to the fact that she was his wife. The idea of permanently sharing a chamber was one notion with which he could have flexibility. There were other matters, though… Javert cleared his throat and asked nervously, "Will you be joining me in my bed tonight?" He felt his cheeks redden and grow hot suddenly.

She smiled with her eyes at him and looked like she wanted to laugh, though – bless her – she did not. She simply patted his hand and said, "I've no idea why you seem embarrassed to ask me that question. Of course I will be with you tonight."

Javert let out the breath he had been holding and smiled meekly. He continued eating his soup in contented silence.

* * *

When Javert blew out the candle in his room and climbed into bed, he counted the seconds until the door squeaked open and he saw Éponine standing in the shadows. He wasn't sure what he expected to see – perhaps her standing there looking angelic in a flowing white nightgown? Instead, she sauntered into the room, stark naked, and climbed catlike into the bed without a word.

He'd not seen her nude in weeks, and then only in the bath and the one time in bed. Javert frenziedly soaked in the sight of her as she moved toward him across the mattress: her pillowy, round little breasts; the gentle curve of her waist and hips; the small dark patch between her legs and the thought of what lay beneath.

He instantly slid his nightshirt up and over and off and let it fall to the floor beside the bed. Then he pulled Éponine by her shoulders down atop him. She squealed as he did it, and he delighted in the sound.

He was getting hard already, just from seeing her climb toward him across the bed, and he wrapped his arms around Éponine and urged her to feel his hardness beneath the sheets on her hips. She moaned a little against his lips right before she compressed her mouth against his in a fiery kiss.

Javert's head was spinning. She'd not kissed him like this in what seemed like ages. Of course, it had been a matter of weeks, but it felt like an eternity. Perhaps, Javert thought absently, when a man had access to something he truly enjoyed, even a short duration of separation could feel this painful.

She was kissing him ferociously, squeezing his lips between hers and gently biting his bottom lip with her teeth. She eventually moved her mouth to his ear lobe, and the heat and speed of her breath in his ear made Javert moan aloud. Her mouth then migrated to his neck, and Javert bucked his hips, his fingers clenching against her back. He felt her hand reach beneath the sheets and take his member, spreading the pearly fluid already forming at its tip down the length. Her delicate little fingers spread over the shaft as her thumb caressed his tip, and Javert growled from his arousal. How on Earth had she so quickly taken to passion that she was now so skilled in kissing and touching?

Javert suddenly felt a primal urge to truly _fuck_ her, to take her and mount her and claim her as his wife. He heaved himself up onto his knees, regretfully feeling the ache in his joints as he did. He arranged Éponine just so, just how he wanted her, propped on her hands and knees with her backside tilted up to him.

She looked apprehensively over her shoulder at him. She'd still not said a word since entering the room. Javert nodded reassuringly to her, though the fire in his belly commanded him to _take her, pound her, consume her._ He ran his fingertips over her entrance and felt that she was slick and ready for him. He spread her knees and pulled her hips up toward him, entering her from behind in one fluid motion.

Éponine cried out loudly, but Javert was louder. The sensation of the depth of his thrust coupled with her warm, wet heat was almost too much to bear, and he paused in his movement as he took a deep, shaking breath to steady himself. She whimpered beneath him, seemingly urging him to continue. Javert suddenly engaged in a thrashing sort of movement, pushing himself into her with such speed and force that the old wooden bed swayed and whined and sounded as though it might break.

He was positively drubbing her now, he thought, as he watched his length pummel in and out of her body with all the pace and power he could muster. His pelvis slapped against her buttocks as he moved, or, rather, he yanked her buttocks hard against his own body. He wasn't so much pushing into as he was pulling her against him; his fingers dug into her hips so hard he worried he might leave marks.

She was moaning wordless exclamations, a constant stream of "oh" and "ungh" and "ahh" coming from beneath him. Finally, she nearly shrieked and collapsed onto her elbows as her spasms gripped Javert's member. The new angle from her lowered torso felt even better to Javert than the previous position had, and within a moment he, too, was roaring out his gratification as he emptied himself into her. He did not bother pulling himself out of her. Not this time. She was his wife, after all, he thought to himself as he extracted his softening member and watched his seed dribble from her quivering entrance.

He leaned back against his pillows and put his hands behind his head, shutting his eyes and sighing deeply against the physical and mental exhaustion he now felt. He glanced down when he felt Éponine tuck her head into his shoulder, splaying her fingers across his heaving chest.

She, too, sighed, though it was the sigh she used when she was being thoughtful about something.

"Éponine, are you all right?" Javert asked cautiously, worried that perhaps he had been too rough and had hurt her, or that she had been offended by the way he had taken her on their wedding night. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," Éponine insisted. She flicked her wide brown eyes up to him and bit her lip. "It's nothing."

Javert furrowed his brow and pet her hair gently. "What is it?" he asked again.

"It's just… I think…" She propped herself up with a hand on either side of Javert, leaning in and touching her lips very softly to his before whispering, "I think that I am quite hopelessly falling in love with you."

* * *

Javert rode Rivage very slowly along the banks of the Seine near the Île de la Cité, his eyes carefully scanning the water for the body of a bourgeois man who'd been missing for five days. Javert had been searching for hours now, and his eyes and mind were growing weary of looking. The weather was pleasant enough, sunny and mild, but dusk was settling upon the city, and the dimming light was making Javert's job increasingly difficult.

Finally, when he heard the church bells chime eight o'clock, he decided to give up on the venture of finding the man's corpse, at least for tonight. He returned Rivage to the police stables, groomed him, and wearily strode the few blocks home.

By then, it was full dark, and the night was still and quiet. The church bells tolled nine, and Javert realized he'd been awake since four that morning and was completely exhausted after eight hours in the saddle.

As he approached his front door, a small smile crossed his lips, for he knew that he would see Éponine upon his arrival... Éponine, his wife. The title still felt strange and wonderful to Javert even a week after their wedding. But Javert's smile vanished when his door became more visible in the dim light of the street lamps.

It was open, and it looked as though the knob had been forced.

"Éponine..." Javert breathed, thinking of nothing but her safety. He thought of dashing through the doorway, but the policeman in him got the better of him, and he proceeded with caution instead. What if whomever was inside had Éponine at knifepoint, and slit her throat at the sound of Javert barreling through the door? The thought made Javert's stomach heave. It was the very worst thing he could possibly imagine.

So, instead, he drew his nock percussion pistol and cocked it, holding it upright beside his cheek with his finger on the trigger. With his left hand, Javert pushed the front door open so slowly that it hardly creaked, and stepped as quietly as he could into the dark front parlor.

The first thing he noticed was that the dining room was in complete disarray. The china had been smashed. The silver was scattered all around the room. It looked as though a mighty struggle had taken place. Javert saw blood, spattered on the wallpaper like so much dew. His heart sank when he considered that the blood was likely Éponine's, and he felt his eyes burn with fear and rage.

Then he heard her voice, coming from down the hall - the study, it seemed.

"No, no! Let me go... Please, please, do not - Monsieur, let me go! No!"

Her voice was desperate but hoarse, as though she'd been crying for some time. Javert wondered when the intruder had gotten in, how long the man had been here, and he cursed himself for leaving Éponine alone.

He trotted silently down the hallway until he reached the study, Éponine's voice tearing at his heart like the claws of a vicious beast.

"Monsieur, I beg it of you. No... Do not..."

He could take it no longer. Javert threw the door open and held out his pistol, but no amount of police work could have prepared him for what he saw.

A man, a scrawny, filthy man that Javert did not recognize, had Éponine pinned beneath her and was fully in the process of raping her. His back was turned to Javert, and in the instant that the door flung open, the man was thrusting vigorously into Éponine while holding her wrists above her head with one hand and pawing at her bare breasts with the other.

Javert's rage was such that he dropped his pistol and leapt at the man, wrenching him off of Éponine with all of his might. The startled rapist cried out in shock, but Javert tackled him to the ground and grabbed at the man's fists. Behind him, Éponine gasped and crawled hurriedly off the desk where she had been laid nude and raped.

Javert pinned the man down as he had done to Éponine and growled angrily, "Who are you to come into my home and rape my wife?"

The man looked at Javert with defiant eyes, but before he could speak, a shot rang out, and a bloody red hole suddenly appeared in the middle of the man's abdomen. Javert looked up, stunned, and saw Éponine standing above them, holding Javert's pistol in her trembling hands.

"His name is Yves Pleurot, and he is a friend of my father," Éponine said quietly, dissolving suddenly into shaking tears. She dropped the pistol and Javert caught it, watching helplessly as the rapist gurgled forth blood and coughed his last, dying right there on Javert's study rug.

* * *

Not two hours later, Javert turned himself into the police station, deciding he would take the blame for shooting Yves Pleurot. He did tell his superior officer the truth about coming home and finding the man raping his wife, but then said he shot the man.

"Inspector Javert," said the Captain, "I am most grieved to hear of the attack on your wife. I will send by the collection team at once to remove the body, and we will speak no more of it."

Javert stared at his Captain, confused. "But, sir, surely there must be charges against me?"

The Captain simply shook his head. "No, Inspector," he said, "I need you on my force. You came home and defended your wife's life and honor. For that, there will be no charges."

A doctor had been sent to the house promptly, along with the team to do away with the rapist's body, and so when Javert arrived back home, he found Éponine nearly asleep in her bed in the red and gold room, the doctor waiting for Javert in the destroyed dining room.

"Monsieur l'Inspecteur," said the doctor gently, rising from his chair, "she is resting. I have given her opium to sedate her. Her injuries are somewhat severe, for she fought back valiantly. She's sprained her wrists and her neck is twisted. She is covered in bruises and scrapes. There are abrasions in her female regions. The man did not spill his seed in her, thanks be to God. Nonetheless, it will take some time... Before she is to rights." The doctor looked around the dining room and flicked his eyes to the closed doorway of the study. "And, for her sanity, Monsieur, I would strongly suggest moving her permanently from this home as soon as you are able."

Javert felt ruined inside, withered and dead and helpless. He simply nodded and thanked the doctor and walked resolutely down the hallway into Éponine's room, watching her turn her drowsy head toward him and observing with sorrow the solitary tear that crept down her cheek.

"Éponine," he whispered, "Why on Earth has this happened to you?"

He wanted to embrace her, to cradle her and hold her close and whisper to her that he cared for her very much indeed, but he thought that perhaps he ought not to touch her, or even come close to her, until she asked him to do so.

"I love you," Éponine said rather firmly, and Javert thought it must be the opium talking, for she rarely became so forwardly and emotionally forthright.

So he half-smiled and folded his hands in front of him, sighing awkwardly.

"You do not love me in return," Éponine said with immense sadness in her voice, and she began to cry so pitifully that it took every ounce of self-control Javert had not to rush to her and kiss her tears away.

"You are speaking in a moment of great distress," Javert argued softly. "We can discuss such things when you are feeling well again and when we are out of this house. Right now I care only for your safety, security, and well-being."

"When he was on top of me, all I could think was, 'He will come and rescue me. My husband will come home and save me from this,'" Éponine told Javert, her voice lolling and croaking. "Then, the thought came through again and again and again... 'Please come to me. I love you. Please come save me. I love you.'"

She came undone then, swiping fiercely at the tears tumbling down her bruised cheeks and trembling uncontrollably. Javert reached his fingers out to hers and she clutched at them, pulling them to her lips and kissing them softly.

"Éponine," Javert whispered, leaning down to brush his lips against her cheeks, tasting the salt of her tears, "You've absolutely no idea... You can not possibly fathom... How much it is that I love you in return."

She nodded, and looked serene and at peace, and then the opium did its work and she drifted into a deep and unyielding slumber.

* * *

"Well, Madame, what do you think?"

Javert pushed open the door to the new house and gestured for Éponine to step inside. He'd rented this house for a good price, but it was lovelier, he thought, than the house they'd left. It had a little courtyard with a small garden, and though it had only two bedrooms, they were richly appointed in sapphire blues and mahogany woods and golden yellows. The study here looked nothing like the one in the old home; that had been quite deliberate. Javert had gotten a new desk and new chairs and they were a completely different style and color than the old ones. The new china had come in and so had the new silver.

Javert had nearly emptied his savings on the move, on all the new furnishings, but what else was he to have done? They must start completely anew. No remnant of their life in the old house was to remain. Éponine must never be made to look upon an item or place that made her recall the trauma that she had endured just two months earlier.

In the time since the attack and the move to the new house, they had taken up residence in a shabby one-bedroom fourth-floor apartment, until everything was ready at the new home. Javert had been paying Pauline to come to the apartment, though it was small and needed little in the way of cleaning, merely to keep the old woman employed.

In all their time in the apartment, Javert had hardly touched Éponine except to cradle her close to him at night or to brush her hair from her cheek. For the first week, she had flinched at his touch, and it had quite honestly wounded Javert deeply, for he knew he had done nothing wrong. Gradually, though, she warmed to him again, even going so far as to walk up to him one day and boldly request a kiss. Javert had obliged, touching his lips gently to Éponine's, but she had pulled him in deeply and moaned a bit into his mouth, setting him afire.

He wanted her more than he could say, but Javert was a patient man. He would give her all the time she needed. If he could never touch her again, well, frankly, he would understand. He would be disappointed, he would be upset, but he would understand. But with each passing day, she warmed to him more and more. Now that they stood in the threshold of their new home, she looked at him with eyes that, for the first time in months, seemed genuinely happy.

"It's absolutely lovely," she breathed, walking throughout the home, taking in the views to the lush courtyard, the way the warm breeze drifted in the large, sunny windows. She glanced over her shoulder at Javert with an expression of gratitude, and she whispered, "Thank you, Husband."

"If I could, I would give you Versailles," Javert said half-jokingly, "but, alas, this is the best I can do."

"I assure you, it is perfectly sufficient and more," Éponine smiled, running her fingertips over the smooth wood of the stocky mahogany bed frame in the sapphire room. She stared at the blue coverlet for a while in silence, coursing her hand over that, as well, her eyes glinting a bit.

"Is something wrong?" Javert asked worriedly, noting the long and unsettling quiet that had taken hold of the room.

"No," Éponine assured him. "It's just... I think perhaps I am ready to christen the mattress."

At first Javert did not understand what she was saying. Flatly, he asked her,

"Would you care to take a bit of a nap?"

"That is not at all what I mean," Éponine shook her head with a bit of a grin, gripping the bed post and biting her bottom lip firmly as she looked straight into Javert's eyes.

"Oh." Now Javert felt rather thick indeed. He realized what she meant and gulped. It had been two months. Perhaps he was no good at it anymore. Perhaps she would not actually want him once their clothes were off, and the he'd look the fool. With some trepidation, he gestured for Éponine to come nearer to him and wrapped her into a tight embrace, kissing the top of her head. "We will do nothing for which you are not ready," he assured her.

"I am ready to have you back," she declared, pulling away from him until they were joined only by their fingertips. She drew him to the edge of the bed and she kicked off her plain black leather boots, slid down her stockings, and turned round so that Javert could unbutton her calico dress. She seemed calm and collected, but Javert was nervous as could be. He gulped again and, with trembling hands, struggled to unfasten the buttons one by one. His fingers felt like unwieldy sausages, so ineffective were they at the delicate task. Finally, he managed to open the back of the dress and slid it from Éponine's shoulders. Next he untied her stays, then peeled her chemise from her thin frame. He continued to quiver with nervousness, as if he himself were a young virgin all over again, but Éponine seemed perfectly all right.

She turned to him, nude, and he sharply took in breath and held it. He'd not seen her body in its entirety in months, and he'd not realized how much he had missed it. Her perfectly round, perky little breasts; her flat, smooth stomach; the gentle curve of her hips and bum. She smiled gently at him and closed the distance between them, fingering the silver buttons of his police jacket playfully.

"Do you want me?" Éponine inquired, her voice a little rasp in the silence of the bedchamber.

"Yes." It was all he could manage, for his mouth was dry and his eyelids heavy with desire. Javert's mind spun and he reached out to brush his fingertips across Éponine's cheek thoughtfully. "You are so painfully beautiful."

Before he knew what was happening, his jacket was being carefully hung in the wardrobe and his white undershirt was being stripped from his torso. His boots were soon kicked off and all that remained were his trousers. Éponine grinned at Javert and brushed her fingers against his crotch, feeling the growing hardness beneath. The trousers were summarily removed and folded, and soon he was cradling her nude form against his. He pulled her into a deep kiss, coursing his hands around the expanse of her back and engaging her tongue in a wild dance. He moaned into her mouth, grateful for her willingness to touch him. As he did, he became harder with growing arousal, and his member pushed against Éponine's lower abdomen. She suddenly pulled away from him as if she'd been burned, erupting into hysterical tears and collapsing against the bed.

Javert did not need to ask what was wrong. She was not ready.

Perhaps she would never be ready again.

He wordlessly gathered his clothes and backed from the room, murmuring, "My love, if you need anything, I will be in the parlor."

She simply nodded, still shuddering with tears, and curled up atop the blankets in the fetal position. Javert walked silently from the room. He knew that there was no comfort he could give her in that moment. She was better left alone.

* * *

"Are you hungry?"

Javert had knocked gently on the bedroom door and found Éponine sitting propped up against pillows, wearing a nightgown. She nodded meekly.

"I am," she affirmed.

"There is stew and bread in the dining room," Javert told her, turning to go.

"We will try again soon," Éponine called after him, but Javert shook his head no.

"We shall wait a good long while," he said.

"I believe it best to get past this as expeditiously as possible," Éponine argued. "I have lived through worse."

"How is that possible?" Javert asked disbelievingly, leaning on the door jamb.

Éponine pinched her lips together and did not answer his question. "Just promise me you will do one thing for me to seek justice."

"Anything."

"Have my father arrested," Éponine requested. "I know he sent the man."

Javert gulped angrily. "Your father will be at the Palais de Justice on the morrow," he promised resolutely, grinding his teeth. "Please, come eat your stew."

* * *

A/N: Hey all! Sorry for the TWO MONTH DELAY! I found out in January that I am expecting my first child with my husband, so I have been very busy for the last few months. I will be trying to update very frequently now, though, until the story is done. Thanks for your understanding and continued readership and reviews.

* * *

**Chapter 13: But Of Course He Now Denies It**

* * *

When Javert went to Saint Michel to find Thénardier, he did it on foot, he did it alone, and he did it brandishing shackles and chains in his clenched fists.

He stormed down the main street of the slum looking for all the world as though he were fully prepared to pummel anyone who looked at him sideways. His teeth were clenched and bared; his eyes were narrowed. Everyone he passed cowered, and many of the men seemed petrified that Javert was coming for them.

Then Javert saw him, standing in a small group of idlers, talking animatedly. Javert strode confidently up to Thénardier, whose back was turned, and whirled him around by the shoulder.

"Oy!" Thénardier cried angrily, and he was about to take a swing at whomever at dared to touch him so when he realized it was Inspector Javert. He lowered his hand, pretended to be brushing dust from his tattered waistcoat, and cleared his throat meekly. The other men in the group watched in awe, none of them willing to aid Thénardier.

"Monsieur Jondrette - also known as Monsieur Thénardier -" Javert pronounced loudly enough for all to hear, and they did listen quite attentively, "You are under arrest, remanded to the custody of me, Inspector Javert. The crime for which you are accused is conspiring in the rape of one Madame Éponine, formerly Jondrette, Thénardier."

"What? 'Ponine has been raped?"

The voice came from a young man standing behind Javert, who turned his face to see Marius Pontmercy looking positively distraught. The student held the palm of his hand against his forehead and seemed to be hyperventilating. Javert gulped.

Thénardier struggled against Javert's grasp, as though he knew he were done for now, and growled at Javert,

"She had it coming, didn't she! Paid by the police to spy, wasn't she! Little slut!"

Marius rushed forward and raised a fist as though he were going to strike Thénardier, then looked at Javert's stern face and thought the better of it.

"Get him out of here, please, Inspector," Marius said, his voice a shaking whisper. "I don't ever want to lay eyes on him again. I'd like him to rot in prison."

"I am taking him at once to the Palais de Justice," Javert assured the student, reminding himself that Marius had spoken harshly of Éponine when she'd first left the slums, and that he was a political renegade hell-bent on the overthrow of the state.

With a backward glance to the trembling Marius, Javert began to shackle Thénardier, and led him through the gathering crowd out of the slum.

* * *

"Monsieur!"

Javert walked briskly through the dusky streets of Paris, anxious to get home, knowing that Éponine was there alone. He'd just deposited Thénardier at the Palais de Justice and would return there in the morning for a deposition, but his mind was racing with thoughts of Marius Pontmercy and the wide-eyed denizens of Saint Michel. At the sound of the child's voice calling after him, he was at first oblivious. Then, again,

"Monsieur l'Inspecteur!"

Javert paused in his steps and turned slowly about, his boots skidding a bit on the mist-moistened cobblestones as he did. A cerulean light bathed the streets now that night was falling, and a gentle rain was cooling the air. The ragged little boy that chased after him was the one they called Gavroche, Javert knew that much, and in his hand he clutched a folded piece of paper.

Javert said nothing to the boy, just looked down his considerable height at him as though he were trying to intimidate the plucky youngster, who stared doe-eyed at him and held out the paper.

"For Madame Éponine, from Marius Pontmercy."

Javert's stomach sank as he took the damp paper from the boy and stuck it in his breast pocket without looking at it further. Gavroche held out his bony little hand for a coin, which Javert exasperatedly produced. Then Gavroche scampered off and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Javert strode impatiently through the streets of the XII Arrondissement, entered into the XI, and finally came upon his own street, rue de l'Abbaye. At last, he reached his own house, and agitatedly turned the key in the lock, just as a heavier rain began to fall. He heard the distant rumble of thunder – the harbinger of a tempest.

Wiping his feet upon the nubby mat as he entered the front hall, Javert called out,

"Éponine?"

There was no answer at first, and Javert's heart began to race. Why did she not respond? Why were no candles lit in the entry and parlor? Why was it dark and quiet and uneasy in the house? It was his nightmare all over again. He began to panic. Then,

"You're home!"

She came striding around the corner with a three-branched brass candelabrum in her hand. She was wearing something Javert had never seen before, and he studied her closely.

It was a new nightgown, made of fine linen and Alençon lace, its long sleeves decorated with bows and long tendrils of ribbon. Around the high waist there was a sash of silk, and the cinched scoop neckline had a bit of a ruffle. There were little tiny flowers embroidered on the quality linen of the skirt, in pink and purple and blue and green silk thread. More lace bedecked the hem around her ankles.

"I see the dressmaker finished his work," Javert noted, realizing that it was probably the finest garment that Éponine had worn since her spoiled youth. "You look entirely magnificent."

Éponine looked down at her body self-consciously. "Thank you," she murmured, "for the compliment and for the nightgown."

Javert said nothing for a minute. He merely admired her. Seeing her look so lovely made him entirely forget for a moment that he had a letter for her in his pocket. He snapped to rights and said finally,

"Here. This is from Monsieur Pontmercy." He took the note from his jacket and handed it over. Éponine's eyes went wide in a way that made Javert's gut roil with jealousy, but he nonetheless released the letter into his hand and assured her, "I did not read it."

"Thank you," she said again, and she turned away from him, light in one hand and letter in the other, and walked into the study. She sat before the fire that glowed in the fireplace, having placed the candelabrum upon the desk, and unfolded the letter to read it.

Too nervous to stand by as she did, Javert began to undress himself from his sopping wet clothes, noting the rush of rain just outside the window and the clatter of thunder in the distance, seeming to get closer. He pulled off his boots and unbuttoned his jacket so that he wore only stockings, a white undershirt, and trousers, and then he heard Éponine say,

"Shall I read it to you?"

Javert hesitated. "It is your letter," he said plainly. "You needn't share anything with me that is private."

"Dear Éponine," she began, ignoring his words. "I am most aggrieved to hear of your misfortune. I am pained and filled with sorrow to know that your life is not so happy as you had hoped it to be. Please, 'Ponine, come home. They have taken your father from here, and he can do you no harm. I promise you that we will be the best of friends if you return. You know how to take care of yourself here. Come home, Éponine. With reverence, your dearest friend Marius Pontmercy."

She folded the letter again and leaned heavily upon her hand, staring blankly into the fire. She sighed deeply. Javert felt sick. His loathing for the radical student had, if possible, just been exponentially magnified.

"Throw it in the fire." Javert chewed and spat the words as though they were rancid, gesturing to the letter in Éponine's hand.

She looked up at him, alarmed, and clutched the letter to her chest. "I will not."

Javert, suddenly filled with anger, felt his ears grow hot. He snatched the letter from Éponine's hand and crinkled it in his fist. Then he tossed it into the flames. Éponine watched with horror as it crinkled and burned.

"You are my wife," Javert hissed, "and you will not listen to the nonsensical ramblings of an anarchist."

Éponine looked heartbroken for a moment. "Don't you know that that was all I had?" she cried. "All I had of him! His writing, right there on paper, and you've just destroyed it!" She rose from the chair and looked as though she might cry, but then looked incensed. "You are a cruel and heartless beast, and you always have been!"

She stormed from the room, pacing down the hallway into the bedroom.

"I'm going to bed!" she called, "and you may sleep in the parlor tonight for all I care, but you may not sleep in here."

That enraged Javert all the more, and he forced his way into the bedroom and bellowed,

"Bossing me around my own house, are you? Ungrateful little…" He shook his head and breathed heavily through his nose, stepping close to Éponine and towering over her. She looked abruptly frightened but then regained her courage and spat,

"What will you do, then, you brute? Strike me? Force yourself on me? Can't be any worse than the man I shot, can it?"

"Is that a threat, Éponine?" Javert growled, seizing her shoulders.

"It's a reminder that I am not afraid of you," Éponine pronounced, "and that I could go home any time I wanted to."

"This is your home! Besides, I would have you arrested and thrown in prison on a long-forgotten warrant."

"You threw that warrant in the fire," Éponine reminded him, but she looked nervous nonetheless. "Just like you did to my personal letter."

"That warrant can be redrawn with very little difficulty," Javert assured her, "and I will always find you."

"Is that a threat, Inspector?" Éponine demanded.

"It is a reminder that you belong to me," Javert insisted. His voice cracked a tiny bit as he said, "and you can not leave me for Marius Pontmercy. I love you, Éponine."

He kissed her then, unexpectedly, perhaps, and fiercely. He pulled her close to him by her shoulders and crushed her face up to his, smashing his lips against hers and extending his tongue deeply into her mouth. She squealed a bit, in surprise, but not in protest, and yielded quickly to him. When their lips parted at last, she panted,

"Do you truly wish for me to stay?"

"With all my heart," Javert assured her, leaning back in to kiss her again, but Éponine placed her fingers on his lips and whispered,

"Show me how badly." When Javert looked confused, she clarified, "Show me why I should stay."

That, Javert could do, he thought to himself. He would make her climax so many times she would scarcely be able to breathe. He would pound her so relentlessly she would hardly be able to walk in the morning, and she would love every minute of it, would adore him for it.

He snarled, like an animal, and pushed Éponine back until she collapsed backward onto the bed. She knelt up to face him and he tore the nightgown she wore from her body just carefully enough not to rip the brand-new garment. She wore nothing beneath it, and was instantly nude.

Thunder clapped simultaneously with a brilliant flash of lightning that illuminated the room in a purple shock of light, only feeding Javert's hunger. He ripped his shirt from his body, almost literally tearing the threads as he flung it from his torso, and shed his trousers and stockings with such haste that these uniform pieces wound up crumpled and discarded on the floor.

In a moment he was atop her, propping himself up on his elbows as he perched himself above her prone form. He dipped his head to take her breast in his mouth, and at that Éponine arched her back and drove her head into the pillows, crying out for mercy or more - which, he could not tell. He opted for more, using his other hand to roughly knife between her thighs. Already, she was blossoming with moisture for him, and he spread the pearly fluids of her arousal around her folds and nub to ready her for him. Her reaction to his touch was so violent a cry that he pulled his hand away, but she wrenched it back, and looked at him with wild eyes, and hissed through clenched teeth,

"Do not stop."

Javert smiled crookedly to himself, quite pleased indeed with his effect on her, and as more thunder clattered outside he quickened the ministration of his hand against her. His thumb played with her nub while two of his calloused, thick fingers delved in and out of her depths again and again, hooking themselves in search of the secret spot that would bring her unending pleasure.

She continued to moan, rather loudly now, and her cries crescendoed as Javert's hand drifted around her body roughly, coursing a thorough and indelicate path around her flesh. She could not seem to get enough of him. Certainly, he wanted more of her. Her hands clutched desperately at the sapphire blanket, crumpling it in her fists.

"Éponine," he murmured, sighing shakily with desire as she yelped out in her moment of climax. She clenched, hard, around his fingers in a chaotic, random sort of rhythm. She shuddered and trembled and flushed visibly even in the dim light. When the lightning flashed and the thunder clapped, Javert could see that Éponine's eyes were glinting. She wanted more.

"Your turn," she said smoothly, reaching up to pull Javert down further onto her. He reached between them again and guided his now-hard, throbbing, and aching member toward her entrance. He considered entering her gently. He considered being slow. But then he felt the moist warmth of her entrance against his sodden tip and all abandon was cast out into the deluge that drenched Paris tonight.

He pushed his entire impressive length into her in one go, burying himself to the hilt as she cried his name and dug her fingernails desperately into his muscular back. His chest muscles and abdominals, sculpted from years of police training, rippled as he began to thrust propped up on his elbows and knees.

Soon all sound, including Éponine's plaintive wails and the constant downpour out the window, were silenced by Javert's internal noises that echoed in his brain: his own racing heartbeat, his hitched breath, the thoughts screaming through his mind.

_Fuck her. Harder. Faster_.

He listened to himself and drove his length into her with such reckless abandon that he hardly felt her nails dig grooves into the skin of his back, hardly noticed when she buried her head in his shoulder and half-sobbed with pleasure against his skin. It barely registered when Éponine came again, such was the vigor with which Javert was pistoning himself in and out of her in that instant.

Finally, he reached a point where he could stave off his own climax no longer, which was actually quite a relief given how desperately out of breath he felt. He was no longer a young man, and such intense love making was truly a hobby of the young, he thought with some disdain.

He emptied himself into her with a great bellow of relief, feeling his seed spill forth from his member and then leak out of her onto the sheets. Christening them, she had said, and he now found it to be quite an ironic and sacrilegious thing for her to have mentioned.

He collapsed beside her, both of their chests heaving. He nearly drew her against his chest, out of instinct and out of affection, but then remembered they had been arguing before the clothes had come off. The last time they'd spoken, she'd obliquely threatened to murder him for being rough and he'd threatened to have her arrested. So, pulling her in for a session of post-coital cuddling seemed grossly inappropriate.

"You mustn't leave me for him," Javert croaked, his throat dry from the arguing and the sex, unwilling to say Marius' name.

Éponine simply shook her head against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. "I'm not going anywhere."

Javert nodded, satisfied to leave the matter at that. She was his wife, after all. Of course she would not leave him. She would stay here, where she belonged.

"Do you suppose the... Unpleasantness... was God's punishment for my life of crime?" Éponine asked suddenly, sounding very sad.

Javert propped himself up quickly and glared at Éponine. "Any God who is real would not punish a person in such a way," he insisted. "You were attacked because your father and his minions are evil men with no semblance of scruples. Justice will be done, Éponine. I go in the morning for a deposition."

"And what will you say?" she demanded. "You will have to lie again and say that you shot the man."

"I plan to say that I arrived home in the middle of the attack, removed the attacker from my wife, that the attacker is no longer living, and that he was identified by the victim as a cohort of her father." Javert nodded curtly to himself.

Éponine looked uncertain. "I hope it works," she said softly. "Good night." She rolled onto her side and shut her eyes, letting the sound of the rain and thunder soothe her to sleep along with the feeling of Javert's hand tracing circles on her bare back. After her breathing slowed enough that Javert knew she was lost in slumber, he glanced at the mess of clothes on the ground and realized that she had fallen asleep without the benefit of her brand-new nightgown. As he glanced back to the perfectly sculpted beauty of her naked, sleeping form, he realized that that was just fine with him.

* * *

Javert entered the Palais de Justice through the large wrought iron gates at the cour d'honneur. Unlike many of the civilians gaining entry through the gates, he did not need to present any documentation to the gendarmes. The honor cross on his uniform was proof enough that he had the credentials to enter the Palais de Justice unquestioned. He nodded curtly at the gendarmes guarding the gates and proceeded through, feeling rather queasy without knowing exactly why.

When he thought hard on it, it was not truly so difficult to reason. He was queasy because he knew he would have to give details of Éponine's attack, because he would have to lie, and because there was a chance he would see Thénardier again. That was enough to make any honorable man ill on the surface.

Javert made his way to the Conciergerie, the medieval fortress that was a part of the Palais de Justice and had housed Marie Antoinette as a prisoner prior to her execution. Here on the Île de la Cité, there were many landmarks of Parisian history, but none so ignominious as the Conciergerie. These days, the only prisoners that languished in its cells were of high value, as had been the erstwhile queen, but in its dank bowels many courts yet functioned. It was in an office beside one of these courtrooms in which Javert would be offering his deposition.

There were three surviving towers from the medieval structure of the Conciergerie, and their names were very telling, if one were to ask Javert. The first was the Caesar Tower, named, of course, for the glorious Roman emperors. The second was the Silver Tower, for the rumor that royal treasure had been stored within it. The last was the Bonbec Tower - the "Good Beak" Tower. This ignoble place was so named in its use as a torture space known for its uncanny ability to get prisoners to "sing."

The office to which Javert now cautiously made his way was, naturally, located beneath the Bonbec Tower.

Fortunately, the space was no longer used for torture, though, Javert thought acrimoniously, perhaps that would have been most fitting for a man such as Thénardier. In many ways, Javert wished that Éponine had not shot her attacker so swiftly. Then he could be brought here, to the Conciergerie, to rot in the poor men's cells they called "oubliettes" - forgotten places, which were crawling with vermin and were literal Hell on Earth. Then he could be made to confess and publicly executed for his capital crime. Either way, the scum would have suffered death, but Javert would not need to lie about what had happened, and the justice system would have had its fair way with him.

Yes, Javert thought with a regretful sigh, that was how it ought to have gone. But Éponine was an impulsive creature, and she likely saw the pistol, saw the man Javert had just wrenched off of her, and acted without thinking clearly. She had simply wanted him dead.

Well, she'd gotten her way, and here Javert was to clean up the mess.

His boots clicked on the ancient stone floors of The Hall of the Guards, the large cloister-like corridor that had survived since the Middle Ages. Torches glowed at the top of the columns that looked up to arching ceilings, unadorned but still magnificent in their simplicity. Javert wanted nothing more than to get this deposition over and done, and yet it seemed to take forever to navigate the labyrinthine Conciergerie.

At last he came upon the little room where he was to meet a justice named Georges Murrat and his clerk. Javert knocked upon the heavy wooden door, worn from the ages, and waited. There was no answer. He cleared his throat and knocked again. Nothing. Finally, Javert tried the iron handle of the door. With a loud and decisive CLUNK, the door opened. It creaked as he pushed it, and he saw with some relief that the little room inside was illuminated somewhat by the dim light of a dirty window on the far wall.

The room was practically bare, completely undecorated, and housed only a wooden table with four chairs around it. There was a lantern in the middle of the table, a stack of paper, an inkwell, and a stash of plain white quills. It seemed to Javert that the room had been made ready, but that he was early. He thus took a seat across from the paper and waited, listening to the ambient noises of the Conciergerie - court proceedings from a small chamber next door, the cries of a man being interrogated across the hall, the busy footsteps of lawyers and the less hurried ones of the condemned in the corridor.

At long last the door swung open again, and in stepped a man in judge's garb, his long black robe flowing about him and his white wig looking terribly out of fashion. He was followed by a more average-looking lackey, a scrawny sort of man with a mousy face and plain clothing. The clerk, Javert thought to himself. He rose to his feet quickly and stood at attention, his bicorn hat tucked neatly beneath his arm and his other hand on the hilt of his sabre.

"Inspector Javert, I presume?" The judge held out a hand in greeting to Javert, who promptly broke attention as it seemed he had been bidden to do. The two men shook hands cursorily, and then Javert did the same with the clerk.

"Justice Murrat," Javert began as they all settled into their chairs, "I very much appreciate you taking my deposition on this case and not requiring that of my wife, who has, I can assure you, been horribly traumatized by the events surrounding this case."

"Indeed," Murrat nodded, folding his hands on the wooden table. He looked down the bridge of his nose at a piece of paper his clerk handed him and read, "The Madame was beaten and raped by an attacker subsequently killed at the scene in an instance of self-defense. The attacker was then identified as an accomplice in other crimes of the Madame's father, a man known by the names Jondrette and Thénardier." He looked up at Javert with wide eyes. "Is this sordid account accurate?"

"I'm afraid so," Javert nodded, sniffing a bit at the unpleasantness of it all.

"Please, Inspector, I ask that you give a full description of the events you witnessed, and how it is that you accuse this Jondrette, this Thénardier, of collaboration in the crime."

Javert nodded again. The clerk readied quill, ink, and paper and prepared to record every word that Javert spoke.

"I was returning home from work," he began. "Patrol, Your Honor. I arrived home to find that the door had been forced open and the lock broken. Upon stepping inside, I saw that the dining room had been thoroughly destroyed, with smashed dishes everywhere and blood spattered upon the walls. I then heard my wife's voice crying for mercy, down the hall. I rushed in the study to find a man in the process of raping her. I removed the man from my wife, tackled him to the ground, and he fought me. I subdued him with a shot from my pistol, the only weapon I had readily available, and the shot killed him. My wife then identified the man as one Yves Pleurot, a longtime accomplice of her father. That is all, Your Honor."

Javert swallowed heavily as the clerk finished writing. It was all true, all of it, except for how Pleurot had died. Javert twiddled his thumbs and bit his lip, waiting for the clerk's quill to stop moving. When at last it did, Justice Murrat spoke.

"Well, Inspector, your story matches perfectly well with that you first told your Captain, but what makes you believe that Monsieur Jondrette had anything to do with this?"

Javert pursed his lips and wished to himself that the judge would stop calling Éponine's father by the name Jondrette. It only tied her back to her old identity.

"On another occasion, I encountered the Monsieur in Saint Michel," Javert informed the judge. "He warned me that his daughter would not have lasted long in that area without getting herself murdered due to her previous collaboration with the police."

Justice Murrat now looked thoroughly confused. He furrowed his gray eyebrows and looked to his clerk. Javert realized quickly that he had said too much, that he had been too honest and truthful and had revealed too much of Éponine's biographical information to the judge. He chastised himself for the fool he was and vowed to whip himself later for it.

"Collaboration?" Murrat repeated. "What collaboration was that?"

Javert gulped heavily. He was in it deep now, he thought. "My wife, prior to our marriage, worked as an informant on the happenings in Saint Michel," Javert admitted, turning his head to look out the dirty little window and biting his lip.

Now Murrat looked a bit frustrated by how complex this was all becoming. He shook his head as if to rid himself of a fly and said disbelievingly,

"So, you met your wife while she was informing for the police, an activity which angered her criminal father and his accomplices, and in retaliation for her betrayal, you believe her father ordered an attack on her?"

Close enough, Javert thought ruefully. "He also showed no remorse and, indeed, practically confessed when I arrested him for conspiracy," Javert added eagerly.

Murrat scratched his hairline, where his wig was surely itching him fiercely, and muttered, "Is there any chance, Inspector, that your wife is this same Éponine Jondrette?"

He held his hand out to the clerk, and Javert suddenly felt his heart race. What was this - a trap? Sure enough, Murrat produced for Javert a copy of the arrest warrant that Javert had thrown in the fire months before. Javert chewed his lip and said nothing. He could lie no more today, but neither could he turn over his wife, his beloved Éponine, to this judge. Javert once more stared out the filthy window and swallowed, trying desperately to steady his breath.

"Inspector?" Justice Murrat prodded, sliding the arrest warrant across the table to Javert. "She was wanted for pickpocketing, no? And now, for murder."

At that, Javert's eyes went round as saucers and he impulsively flew to his feet. "Murder?" he demanded. "I demand to know what is going on here!" He slammed his fist upon the table in his rage.

"Sit down, Inspector, or I shall have a gendarme arrest you for contempt," Justice Murrat said calmly, picking at his fingernails intently.

Javert, shaking like a leaf, slowly lowered himself into his chair.

"The police inspected the body of Yves Pleurot, the alleged rapist, and it was found that he was shot from an angle at which the shooter would have to stand between sixty and sixty-five inches in height," Murrat informed Javert. "Your wife would fit that description, but you -" the judge gestured to Javert's considerable size, "you would not, Inspector, so we know that it was not you who shot him. You are covering for Éponine Jondrette. You have lied in a deposition."

"It was self-defense!" Javert cried, holding his hands up. "She was terrified of him!"

"He was lying on his back upon the ground," Murrat said serenely, "whilst you held him down for her."

The scene the judge was painting was horrifying, but, Javert realized, terribly close to the truth. The accusation that Éponine had shot her attacker at a moment in which the man was somewhat helpless was more accurate than Javert's lie that it had been him to shoot the man in an instant of pure self-defense. Javert buried his face in his hands.

"And what will you do to us?" he asked wearily.

"You are to be relieved of your post, effective immediately," Justice Murrat informed Javert. "As for your wife, she was arrested this morning at your home and is in a cell here at the Conciergerie. Her father has been released. Before you ask, the answer is no, you may not see her."

"With all respect, Your Honor, I refuse to take this man off of my force."

Javert whipped his head to the sound of the new voice, having not noticed the door to the little room open. In the entry of the room stood the Parisian Prefect of Police, the man in charge of the entire city's police force. Javert rose quickly to his feet, snapping to attention.

"Prefet LaRue," said the judge with some disdain, and Javert could tell that the two had met many times before under acrimonious circumstances.

"This is the finest inspector in Paris." The Prefect pointed to Javert, who remained at attention, and said harshly to the judge, "With all the unrest in this city, do you truly wish to be locking up rape victims and defrocking the finest protectors of the realm?"

Murrat did not answer. Javert felt his heart soar with hope that perhaps, just perhaps, the Prefect might get him out of this mess.

"It is my command as head of the police force that this man be given a commendation for honorable service, and that his wife be expeditiously released. I will be needing your services presently, Inspector," Prefect LaRue nodded, turning now to Javert, who nodded once in return, still at attention. "There are riots in rue Saint-Denis. Get your wife home and report for duty immediately."

"As you command, Monsieur le Prefet," Javert affirmed, and Murrat looked perfectly baffled that he had been so definitively overridden. For the first time in days, Javert felt the corners of his mouth creep up. All would be well. All manner of things would be well.

* * *

The so-called "riots" in rue Saint Denis turned out to be a full-on battle zone necessitating the presence of the military.

At first, Javert was there upon Rivage with myriad other Parisian police. For nearly twenty-four hours solid, they worked to hold back the rioters from causing unnecessary damage or, worse, spreading too far through the city. Then the rioters' numbers swelled and the National Guard was called in, along with Dragoons and regular Infantry.

Frankly, Javert found the entire affair ridiculous. He understood, at its core, the logic behind the discontent in general. The economy was quite poor and had been so since 1827. The poor had very little to eat due to poor harvests. They had very few jobs. Those with work considered themselves inadequately paid and those without, unjustly unemployed. The cost of living had skyrocketed due to the ill economy, and that much Javert could affirm was true. Across the class markings, there was widespread discontent, a general feeling of gloom. Many cried out for justice through revolution, but of course Javert had never seen illegal insurrection as the source of relief for societal ills.

These particular riots, the ones in Saint Denis in the summer of 1831, were only a distant by-product of the dissatisfaction with which Javert could vaguely empathize. These were originally celebratory of the acquittal of several young Republican accused by the Assize Court. The men had been obviously guilty of treason and treachery, but to execute them, believed the government, would have set off a firestorm of rioting and revolution that could not be stopped. This little disturbance in Saint Denis celebrating the acquittals was a necessary evil that could be quickly and effectively quashed.

Or so the police had thought, Javert himself included, but his patience had worn out when Rivage was injured by a flying huge chunk of stone that had been chiseled from a gutter. The horse was struck in the face and bled profusely from his shattered jaw; he was led away by the police horse master and Javert was left to continue on foot. Distantly, Javert worried that Rivage would have to be put down. The wound would fester, and how was a horse supposed to eat with a broken jaw?

Feeling sick to his stomach in a way he had not since his young days in the military, Javert observed with disgust the increasing violence surrounding him. Rocks and stones flew, bottles were broken and aimed directly at police with the intent of maiming or killing, and many buildings in the medieval street set afire. Javert was working on putting out a blaze with a team of other policemen when a Captain approached him and said breathlessly,

"We are retreating, brother. The National Guard will be here any minute, and then it will be a battle. This is no longer our fight. You have been on scene for nearly twenty-four hours. Go home. Take a bath. Go to sleep. The army will put this down like a rabid dog."

The reference only served to remind Javert of Rivage, and his stomach turned again.

By the time Javert made it home, it was dusk, and Javert had been awake for so long that he was unsteady on his feet. His uniform was practically destroyed; it was good that he had three more copies of it, because this one would likely need to be burned. He knew he stank horribly of sweat and blood and smoke, looked a tattered mess, and certainly felt like all hell.

So when he stumbled through the door and called for Éponine, he was more than a little relieved when she wordlessly rushed to him and thrust her arms around his waist. He wrapped his arm around her back, burying his nose in her damp hair, fresh from a bath, and relishing the lavender scent that he sensed. He appreciated her silence, after the cacophonous madness he had just left, and he sighed a little against the top of her head in the dark quiet of the hallway. Finally, she spoke, pulling back a bit from him and looking sadly into his eyes.

"A letter came not an hour ago."

Javert's heart sank. He knew what it was, and did not need to ask, but he said in a voice rasping with dehydration,

"Rivage?"

Éponine just nodded, and that was all that was said of the matter. Javert did not ask to see the letter; he did not particularly want to see it in the first place and, anyway, he fully believed Éponine. He did not wish for the sordid details of his beloved horse's demise. He'd been there to witness a wicked bastard throw a chunk of stone directly at Rivage's face in an attempt to unhorse Javert himself, and he had seen how valiantly Rivage had tried to stand as the poor horse had moaned in pain. All Javert could hope was that they had shot the wretched creature quickly and mercifully so that he did not suffer unnecessarily.

Eight years Javert had ridden with Rivage, and through the years the elegant bay gelding had served him well. Javert looked rather miserably down to his boots and noticed that he still wore his spurs. One foot at a time, he kicked his boot up and pulled off the heavy spurs, holding them regretfully in his hand. Again, Éponine said nothing, and for that he was grateful. Javert went to put the spurs in a drawer in the kitchen that had heretofore been empty; now it would house the spurs and nothing else. These were the same spurs he'd used for eight years. He'd gotten them brand new when he'd arrived in Paris and had never ridden another horse with them. Nor would he ever do so. He would have to procure new spurs when the police department replaced Rivage - or at least tried to.  
"They said you were likely on your way home," Éponine told Javert. "I've got hot water ready for you to wash, and you can take a proper bath when Pauline comes tomorrow, but now you must sleep."

Blankly, as though he were a living statue, Javert followed Éponine down the hallway as she led him by his hand. She pulled him into the study and began peeling off his uniform pieces, one by one, until he stood naked and filthy before her. He looked down at her with sorrowful eyes, eyes that he was a bit ashamed to note had the makings of tears in them. His ruined uniform was cast onto a chair and Éponine, standing small but resolute in front of him in her beautiful linen nightgown, gave him a little reassuring smile.

"It's all going to be all right in the end," she told him, laying some linen towels on the ground and gesturing for Javert to stand upon them. "Just you wait and see."

She took a sea sponge and dipped it in the copper bucket of water that was now only warm, and began squeezing it gently on the dirtiest parts of Javert's chest and arms to moisten his skin. Javert watched her do it, marveling at her attention to her task. When she wet an area, she scrubbed it hard with Marseille soap, and then rinsed it with the sponge and dried it with a linen towel. It felt so splendid that Javert shut his eyes and shivered. While she washed him, his eyes still closed, he murmured,

"I was absolutely petrified that I was going to lose you."

Éponine inexplicably chuckled. "I always seem to be slipping through your fingers, love, don't I?"

Javert cracked an eyelid and sighed deeply. "I do not find it funny," he insisted. "They nearly took you away from me, Éponine."

She sobered. "I know they did," she nodded, rinsing and patting dry his stomach. "I cried for it, believe you me. I cried for you."

Javert shuddered again, because her hand had brushed against his bare penis as she moved to wash the ashes that had made their way through his uniform from his legs. She chuckled again at his dramatic reaction to so little a touch and, cruelly, ran her wet fingertips up and down the length of his limp shaft.

"Stop it, please," Javert beseeched her, trying to gently pull her hand away without seeming ungrateful for the washing he was receiving.

"But you must be full of worry and tension," Éponine argued. "A good spill and you'll be asleep in minutes once we get you into bed."

"I assure you, I shall have no trouble at all sleeping. I am thoroughly exhausted," Javert told her, his eyes now both open and looking at her with warning as she stroked him to hardness - hardness he neither wanted nor could control. He breathed heavily through his nose and shook his head.

Éponine looked disappointed but moved her ministrations back to washing Javert's legs. He nearly fell asleep right there, true to his word, and as he swayed on his feet Éponine guided him back into their bedchamber and somehow put a nightshirt on him. Javert was so tired that he did not remember what happened next, only felt the pillow beneath his head and felt her little fingers brushing against his cheek soothingly. He distantly could feel her kiss his lips and whisper a goodnight, and then heard her humming a relaxing little tune. Then all was black and quiet.

Until five o'clock in the morning.


	5. Chapter 5

Javert was jarred awake to the sound of smashing glass. His eyes snapped open and he sprang up to a sitting position, abruptly alert. Beside him, Éponine did the same and gripped at his bicep in surprise.

"What's going on?" she asked in a whisper filled with trepidation.

Javert did not answer, but instead rose to his still-unsteady feet and crept over to the window. He peeled back the curtain just enough to see out the window into the dim indigo light of the early dawn. Across the narrow street, a small crowd of drunken young revelers appeared to have thrown a stone through the window of a house. That house, Javert knew, belonged to a Royalist politician.

"Vive la France!" shouted one of the students, and the rest cheered vociferously. They banged upon the front door of the politician's house and began to chant, "Vive la Republique!" over and again.

"Are you going to go out there?" Éponine asked fearfully, as though she truly did not want him to do so.

Javert sighed and considered it. The aching in his body after nearly twenty-four hours straight of intense battling screamed at him to go back to sleep. The policeman in him shouted angrily at him to get outside and restore order.

But then, that was laughable. Restore order? Alone? He would need quite a bit of backup.

"On my honor, Éponine, I can not go out there," he said finally, and she looked a bit relieved. "I am farther beyond exhausted than ever I was in my military days, and that crowd is too large for me to handle alone. Besides, if they discover that this house belongs to a policeman, especially a member of the Command and Management Corps, they may very well choose to burn it to the ground."

As Javert finished speaking, a row of eight National Guardsman on horseback approached down the street from the opposite direction as the crowd of students.

"Disperse immediately!" screamed the commander of the Guard. Javert smiled a bit to himself. Thank God. Perhaps he would wind up back in bed after all. But then, rocks began flying toward the National Guardsmen, and they quickly dismounted, sending their horses back with two groomsmen. Baring their sabers menacingly, the Guardsmen lined back up together.

"Death to tyrants!" shouted the curly-haired student Javert recognized from the meeting at Notre Dame. "Death to the King!"

The student's words made Javert's blood boil with rage. At that, he ran quickly from his bedroom down the hallway to the study. He snatched his filthy, ragged uniform from the chair where Éponine had stashed it the night before and began dressing as hastily as he could. Almost immediately, Éponine was in the doorway of the study, and she said breathlessly,

"If you're going out there, I'm coming with you!"

"Absolutely not." Javert killed the idea before it had a chance to breathe, shaking his head firmly. He sheathed his sword and holstered his club, pushing past Éponine into the hallway. "I will return."

"Wait!" she grabbed his arm before he had a chance to dash surreptitiously out the door in the dining room. He planned on exiting through the gate and coming around the corner, so that it would not be obvious which house was his.

At Éponine's exclamation and grasp, Javert turned impatiently back and sighed briskly. He needed to be outside. Now. There was intense urgency to the situation.

"I love you," Éponine whispered, leaning up to kiss Javert softly upon the lips.

"And I you," he said in return, perhaps too hurriedly, before rushing out the door to join the chaos in the street.

What he found was absolute madness. The National Guardsmen were slashing fiercely at the students with their swords.

"Disperse and save yourselves!" shouted the commander desperately, but the students paid him no heed, and only continued advancing toward the Guardsmen. Javert unsheathed his sword and put his hand on his club.

Everything that happened for the next ten minutes was a complete blur. Javert battled with a few students who were armed with swords of their own, likely stolen from dead soldiers in Saint Denis. One he killed by stabbing him straight through the gut, watching as the young fool crumpled to the ground in a screaming, bloody heap. The other two retreated with slashing injuries, weeping and moaning in pain.

After the armed students seemed to have been defeated, it was easier to beat the students – literally. Javert used his club to subdue the rush of drunken radicals storming through his street. At one point, he beat relentlessly upon the back and shoulders of a brown-haired combatant, taking out all of his rage, but froze when the boy turned his head.

It was Marius Pontmercy.

Javert grabbed Marius roughly by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet. Marius stumbled, both from drink and from the beating Javert had just given him. Javert knew that with a good crack to the skull, he could kill Marius. Wouldn't that be grand, he thought vaguely… Marius was here, breaking the law. Javert would be fully within his rights to kill him. And yet, Éponine harbored some semblance of affection for this misguided fool.

Shoving Marius away from the melee, Javert shouted,

"Clear out of here!"

Marius looked back, obviously confused that he was still alive, and staggered away. Behind him, Javert saw that the curtains on his bedroom window were pulled back, and Éponine was watching the commotion with rapt attention and obvious anxiety. Javert wanted to scream at her to go back inside, to close the curtains, to get away from the fracas, but then he saw where her eyes were. She was watching Marius lurch away from the scene, her palm pressed flat against the glass, her eyes swollen with tears.

Javert felt his stomach roil with anger and possessiveness. He was suddenly oblivious to the complete and utter chaos surrounding him. He heard nothing. He saw nothing – not the student who had just slit a Guardsman's throat with a pocketknife, and not the Guardsman who had just disemboweled a student with his sword. Javert did not notice that the cobblestones had become slick with blood.

Because he was not paying attention, he did not notice the revolutionary who approached him from behind with a chunk of stone, which the student raised high above him and brought down with a sickening crack onto Javert's skull. Javert fell like a sack of potatoes, abruptly aware of his own heartbeat and the feel of the cold, wet cobblestones of his cheek.

How dreadfully his head hurt, he thought to himself as the world started to go black. As his eyes fluttered shut, he could swear he saw Éponine come dashing out the front door of the house, her hands held up toward the students, entreating them to do him no further harm.

But that was in slow motion, and silent, and Javert could not be certain what he was seeing. Before he could call out to Éponine to see if she was really there, his eyes shut with a thud, and all was gone.

* * *

The first thing Javert noticed was the pounding in his skull.

Then he noticed how very bright the sunlight seemed.

Then it occurred to him that it had been night when he'd been hit, and that he'd opened his eyes to daylight. How long had he been asleep?

"What time is it?" he croaked, to no one in particular, but then Éponine's face appeared in his field of vision, a look of absolute relief on her tired features.

"Oh, thank God," she sighed. "You ought to ask what day it is, not what time it is. It is noon on June 18th."

Javert groaned. Nearly a day and a half he'd been out, then. He felt distinctly thirsty, and was very grateful when Éponine held out a cup of water to him. He took it in a shaking hand and held it to his parched lips, sipping carefully.

"How did I come to be back in my bed?" Javert asked, looking around and noting that he was propped up on many pillows, in a nightshirt, and that out the window the street looked calm as a carriage rolled past and people strolled by serenely. "How did the riot end?"  
"More National Guardsmen came," Éponine told him matter-of-factly. "In the end, five students were killed and scores injured, and eight Guardsmen lost."

"I do not like such numbers," Javert shook his head. "Do you know, when I went down, I saw you run toward me?" He smiled a bit at her, at the ridiculousness of it. He did not mention Marius.

"I did," Éponine nodded, a little ashamed. "I did run toward you." When Javert looked back at her, horrified, she continued, "They were going to kill you. They were ready to cut your throat, and I ran out there in my nightgown and all, and screamed at them to please not kill you, not to kill my husband. I begged them, I told them you were all that I had, and I knelt down over you and held your head in my arms. I hunched over you and I said that if they were going to kill you they would have to kill me first."

Javert did not know what to say. Ought he to admonish her for risking her own life – for saving his? Ought he to thank her for being foolish and rushing out into danger? What was he to say in a moment such as this? He felt his eyes burn with tears of shame and gratitude and he just gulped and nodded. He looked straight ahead, for he could not look at her. If he did, he would cry, and a man was not supposed to cry in front of his wife.

Éponine stroked her fingers across his cheek and leaned over to brush her lips there.

"I am just glad… so very glad… that they did not kill you," she whispered. "The doctor was here just a few hours ago and will be back this evening. He will be very glad to see you are awake."

Javert wiggled his toes and fingers, bent his knees and elbows, just to ensure that everything was working. It was, and he sighed with relief.

"The eighteenth, you said today was?" he asked, and Éponine nodded. Javert sighed again, and she looked at him with a confused gaze. "Tomorrow will be my birthday," Javert explained, "and of course they will make note of it at work. They always do."

Éponine grinned to herself, obviously trying to suppress the smile. She folded her hands on the lap of her calico dress.

"You will not be at work tomorrow," she informed him matter-of-factly. "You will need a few more days to rest. But thank you for telling me that it is your birthday."

Cursing himself, Javert cringed. Éponine giggled and reached out to curl her fingers in his hair… his graying hair, Javert thought ruefully to himself.

"Which birthday is it? How old will you be?" Éponine asked playfully, and Javert thought she did not realize how much the question pained him.

"I do not wish to say."

"You are my husband!" Éponine looked genuinely offended. "We have been married for months; you can not keep your age from me!"

Javert sighed very deeply. He very truly did not wish to divulge his age to her. What if she was disgusted? Worse, what if she told him he looked even older than that? Javert picked at the blanket and shut his eyes.

"It will be my fifty-second birthday," he said quite sadly, and then opened his eyes slowly and looked cautiously to Éponine for her reaction.

She hardly reacted at all, much to Javert's shock. She simply smiled kindly at him and nodded.

"We shall make it a most happy birthday," she said softly, and Javert noticed how the sunlight coming through the window cast a warm light upon her beautiful face, how her wavy auburn hair undulated in the gentle breeze. He reached out to brush his knuckled against her cheekbone, and she took his large hand in both of hers, pressed his palm to her cheek, shut her eyes, and sighed happily.

"Is it not entirely ridiculous, me being your husband?" Javert scoffed suddenly, breaking the serenity of the moment most thoroughly. Éponine's eyes opened and she let Javert's hand fall to her lap.

"Why?"

"You, little more than a girl," Javert shook his head, "and me, and old, useless man, no fun at all for you… I saw the way you looked at Marius the other night. Perhaps you ought to go to him."

"Say such things and perhaps I shall!" Éponine said angrily, looking as though she might cry. Javert instantly regretted his words.

"I'm sorry," he insisted. "I love you, very much indeed."

Éponine sniffed and looked out the window. "Are you quite certain of that?"  
"Quite."

She nodded then. "I do not want to hear any more about what is fitting or proper. We are perfectly suitable. I very much like this life. I ran out into a street full of fighting men to save this life. Do not spoil it now with your gruff ramblings."

"Very well," Javert agreed. His head began pounding again, and he thought perhaps it was from hunger. "Would you be kind enough to bring me a bite of bread?"

Éponine, still looking out the window, nodded once and rose from her chair, and it was only then that Javert realized she'd been sitting there when he'd unpredictably awoken. He wondered to himself how long she'd been sitting beside him, waiting, and he expected it had been quite a long time indeed.

* * *

The morning of his birthday, Javert awoke to the sensation of something warm and wet around his manhood. His eyes sprang open and he looked down to see Éponine, having peeled back the blanket and pushed up his nightshirt, giving him pleasure.

"Ah," she said, taking her mouth from him and grinning widely. "I knew it would wake you sooner or later."

"I should think so," Javert affirmed, nearly laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. He was quite accustomed to experiencing morning erections, but not to having them attended to while he slept.

"I was rather hot-blooded upon waking," Éponine explained, "and I thought perhaps I might entice you into action."

She dipped her head on him again and lapped her tongue flat against him, swirling it around his shaft and tip. Javert grasped the sheets and hissed through his teeth; it felt magnificent and all he wanted was more.

But then she stopped, pulling away from him and drawing herself to the far end of the bed. She was nude, having removed her nightgown. The embroidered one, the pretty one she'd worn out into the street, had been ruined that night, so she had slept in a plain gown. Now, though, she was bare to Javert and he could see the hard, ready perks of her nipples even in the room's darkness. The curtains were closed, but enough light remained for Javert to see that she looked more than a little alert and aroused.

"Please come back," Javert begged, his voice rasping from sleep. Éponine just shook her head playfully and grinned again, lying down across the bed on her back and reaching down her torso to touch herself.

Oh, God… Javert did not know if he could stand to look. It was too much, too wonderful. She traced right hand down her stomach and flitted her fingers across her clitoris while her left hand caressed her own breast, her thumb flicking her nipple impishly.

Javert's own right hand drifted to his erection, which now featured a pearl of liquid at its tip that he massaged down the shaft as lubrication. He stroked himself, feeling warmth spread through his whole body, as Éponine began plunging two fingers in and out of herself, then playing with her clitoris as if it were a splendid new thing she'd just discovered. She fondled her breasts reverently with her left hand, and after a while Javert could not take his eyes off of them, off of their gentle curves and the hard nubs of her nipples.

Then there were the noises she was making – little 'uhh's and 'ohh's of pleasure in a low, desperate sounding moan. She started whispering Javert's name, over and again, pleading for him to give her 'more,' though of what, he could not say. He wished very much that he could see into her brain and imagine with her, but her eyes were clenched shut and so was her mind.

Very soon, too soon, Javert felt himself nearing his climax, his hand running furiously up and down his shaft, over his smooth tip, and over again. He was swollen and throbbing, his seed about to burst. He hurriedly heaved himself up onto his knees and made his way to Éponine, hovering over her. She opened her eyes and looked blearily up at him, as if she were lost in another world, but smiled breathlessly.

"Please," she whispered, "let me have it."

She began touching her drenched nether regions with force then, stroking and pawing at herself frenetically and moaning desperately as if she had a fever. His head suddenly spinning with dizzy gratification, his ears ringing and hot, Javert watched as his seed spilled forth in a few long surges. It landed in puddles on Éponine's chest, and as her fingers anxiously spread through the liquid, she bawled in her own delightfully robust climax.

Javert sat back on his knees, the fingers of his left hand running enthusiastically through his cropped hair as he recovered. Well, he thought to himself, that was one way to start the day. He looked down at the laughable mess he had made and rose quickly from the bed to fetch a wet cloth from the basin at the wash table. As he cleansed Éponine's sullied skin, she smiled up at him and murmured,

"Happy birthday, my love."

As eventful as the past few days had been, with battles and riots, the death of Rivage, Javert's own injury, and a sad reflection on his age, Javert was positively determined to make this the very happiest birthday he'd ever had.

As he smiled back down at his wife, he thought to himself that it was perfectly impossible for that not to be the case.

* * *

Javert was finally allowed back to work four days after his birthday. It was with a heavy heart that he realized he would never again ride Rivage on Patrol, but he nonetheless presented himself for duty early in the morning prepared for whatever obligations he was assigned.

"Good morning, Inspector," said the Director of Active Services, when Javert stepped up to his desk in the large central police station. Javert had on his formal uniform, just in from the laundress, and carried his hat in his gloved hand. Javert bowed low to the Director and murmured a respectful greeting. "How are you feeling?" his superior asked.

Javert took in breath slowly through his nose and nodded with a weak smile. "Much better, Monsieur," he said gratefully, then joked awkwardly, "It was not too large a stone, thank God."

"Thank God." The Director grinned crookedly from where he sat and gestured at a chair across the desk. Javert hesitantly took a seat, wondering what all the fuss was and why he'd been called to the Director's office in the first place. "Inspector Javert, the Prefet de Police has made it clear that, given your bravery and stamina in Saint Denis as well as your willingness to rush into danger in your own street, he wishes for you a promotion to the rank of Commissaire Principal."

The Director kept talking, but his words faded into silence as Javert processed the news. A promotion? For what, exactly? For doing his duty? Quite unintentionally, he interrupted his superior.

"Monsieur, I can not accept the promotion," he said abruptly. "I was only doing as any man of my position with a scrap of honor would do."

The Director smiled weakly. "Perhaps you have more scraps of honor than most, Javert. You will be a Commissaire Principal, because that is where we need you to be. Can you accept the responsibility of the position or not?"

Put that way, it was a challenge more than a compliment, and Javert stiffened. He nodded brusquely. Of course he could handle the job. The pay raise and uniform decorations that would accompany the new responsibilities would simply be bonuses.

"Here." The Director rose from his chair and turned to a cabinet behind his desk, from which he pulled a new jacket. It had Commissaire's laurels around the collar, with elaborate epaulets and braided silver cording hooked to the third button. The Director carefully handed Javert his new jacket and said, "Your uniform, Commissaire Javert. I've no doubt in my heart you will treat it with the dignity it demands."

Javert reverently took the garment and placed it on the chair upon which he'd been sitting. He unbuttoned his old jacket with trembling fingers and peeled it off his shoulders, handing it to the Director, who took it and placed it in the cabinet. Javert then put the new jacket on, noticing that it felt heavier upon his shoulders. After the hook at his neck was clasped, Javert tucked his white collar properly about the jacket and cleared his throat.

"Thank you, Monsieur Directeur," he said with a little bow. The Director waved him off, taking his seat again.

"Thank yourself, Javert. It's your own ethic that's gotten you here. From Napoleon's army to a prison in Toulon to a police force in the North and now a Commissaire in Paris. Quite a remarkable career path, I'll grant you."

Javert nodded. "I have been blessed."

"You have worked hard," the Director insisted, smiling gently. "You will work a short shift today, until we know your health is fully restored. Four hours in Saint Denis helping maintain order as they put things to rights."

"Yes, Monsieur Director," Javert nodded, rising and saluting his superior. As he turned to leave the police station, his brain positively buzzed with excitement. It felt better than Javert could say to be back at work, not least because he was finally being recognized for the amount of resolve he put into his career.

After directing the cleanup of Saint Denis for five hours (he found it difficult to tear himself away), Javert made his way home to inform Éponine of his promotion. When he opened the door, though, he was very surprised at what he saw.

Éponine stood at the dining room table, putting coins into a little purse, with fingerless gloves on her hand and a plain bonnet upon her head. She wore an unadorned olive green wool skirt and white blouse, the most dull clothes Javert had purchased for her, but had a walking shawl around her shoulders as if she were about to leave the house. She looked up, startled, at the sound of the door opening.

"You're home!" she exclaimed, stating the obvious as though it were an unpleasant and problematic fact.

"Indeed…" Javert cautiously shut the door behind him and wiped his boots on the mat, sniffing suspiciously as he took a step into the dining room. "Where are you going?"

Instead of answering, Éponine looked curiously at Javert's jacket and stated, "Something's different about your uniform. Have you been promoted?" She clapped her hands in what Javert perceived to be fabricated excitement and smiled wildly.

"Wait a moment, please." Javert held up his hand to quiet her. He gestured to the dining room table, attempting to keep his calm and not sound irritated at her avoidance. "Let us pause for a moment and sit."

So they did, across from one another, and Javert folded his gloved hands atop the table surface.

"You look very fine indeed," Éponine commented, grinning nervously at him.

Javert just shook his head, for she was keeping something from him and he knew it. Éponine's smile vanished. Javert looked around the house and realized it was very quiet – too quiet. "Where is Pauline?" he asked. "Ought she not be here this time of day?"

"I gave her the day off," Éponine said dismissively. Javert narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.

"Why? Where are you going dressed in such shabby clothing? What are you keeping from me?" he demanded, his voice a low growl of warning. For the first time since he arrived home, Éponine's face bore a hint of fear.

"I… was going to the market… for supper," she stammered, looking at the wood grain of the table.

"Lies!" Javert slammed his hand on the table and roared in his anger. He rose to his feet and ordered, "Tell me where you were going!"

Éponine pursed her lips but did not look up at him. "I was going to Saint Michel," she said very softly, "to make sure that Marius was all right. You beat him rather skillfully, you know, last week in the street. You weren't the only one to be hurt."

Javert felt himself quiver with wrath. She'd been leaving his house – in secret – to visit Marius Pontmercy? It was too much. Javert put his hands on his head and began pacing around the dining room.

"Please sit down," Éponine pleaded.

"How dare you."

"Please!" she cried again, looking up at him with plaintive eyes brimming with tears.

"How dare you betray me in such a way! He is a seditious traitor, a damnable criminal, and I ought to have killed him when I had the chance!" Javert kicked angrily at one of the dining room chairs, breaking the joint between the seat and the leg and sending it crashing to the floor. Éponine gasped and exclaimed,

"He was my friend!"

"Then your taste in friendship is irresponsible at best, Éponine, and stupid at worst!" Javert slammed his fist again on the table and felt it tremble beneath his skin. He realized he had just circuitously called Éponine stupid, and the look of hurt and anger she wore on her face told him she realized it, as well. "You are not a stupid woman, Éponine, but you must make better decisions," he said finally, in a softer voice. "You step foot into Saint Michel again and you are as good as dead. Those people want you dead. They made that clear."

She said nothing to him, just looked straight ahead into the glaring midday sun coming in through the window. Javert wondered what she was thinking. If he left her right now, would she go to him – to Marius? Probably. He could let her go and follow her there, then catch her and threaten to divorce her. He could let her go and do nothing, let her get herself killed. Or he could lock her in the house. He could stay home and supervise her.

After about four solid minutes of silence, in which the only sound was the ticking of the large clock in the hall, Javert strode from the room and out the front door, deciding that Éponine could go where she liked and things would wind up however the fates determined they should.

He had no idea where he was going, but he walked and walked until he was on the border of the fifth and sixth Arrondissements, in the rue de l'Ouest. It was warm, so warm that the heavy jacket of Javert's new uniform was making him sweat terribly, so he stopped for a spot of wine and a breath. When he came back into the street, he nearly walked right into the path of an approaching carriage. He was not paying very close attention; he admitted that even to himself, but neither was the driver of the coach. The driver shouted a profanity at him, and Javert nearly made him stop when his eye caught a glimpse of the man riding in the back of the carriage.

He knew that face anywhere. An old man, perhaps sixty, and a girl of about sixteen, sat inside the coach and looked anxiously out the window at the fracas between their driver and the policeman. When the old man's and Javert's eyes met, the old man appeared to panic.

It was Jean Valjean.

There was no mistaking him, his narrow nose, his wild eyes. It had been eight years since last Javert had seen him, but there was absolutely no doubt that the man he beheld was Jean Valjean. The man had haunted Javert's dreams for ages, and now here he was, right in front of him. In his fear, the old man pushed his daughter – the girl called Cosette – away from the window and banged his walking cane on the front of the cabin to urge the driver to move faster. In response, the driver, who seemed fully prepared for such a situation as this, pressed the horses into a fervent cantor down the narrow street. Pedestrians fled in qualified terror, some nearly being run down by the horses, as the driver screamed at them to move.

Shouting and blowing his whistle, Javert tore off running after the carriage, but he simply could not keep up. He sprinted for three blocks after the carriage, but the distance between them grew greater and greater.

"24601!" Javert roared, though he knew it was useless. Valjean knew as well as Javert who the other was. They'd recognized each other plain as day, and as the carriage turned a corner and very nearly tipped over in its haste to escape, Javert realized he had lost Valjean yet again. He stopped running and bent at the waist, placing his hands on his knees and heaving deep breaths in and out of his open mouth. His gasping breaths were more like sobs than anything else as he comprehended the extent of his defeat.

"God damn him," Javert murmured aloud as he tried to catch his breath. "More swine than man."

Resigned to the day's fate, Javert stood and looked to his right, seeing a tavern that appeared suitably seedy given the mood. Indeed, the last thing Javert wanted in this instant was to go home to Éponine, who seemed to want Marius more than him, or, worse, to an empty house. So, he walked into the tavern and noted with some embarrassment the hush that settled over the establishment upon notice of the uniformed policeman's entrance.

He took a spot in the corner, sitting surreptitiously at a little hidden table, and gradually the noise level in the tavern rose back to its normal level. Javert ordered a bottle of wine and some bread and cheese, and he ate his lunch in silence and solitude, taking frequent swigs of the syrupy wine.

After a while, the violin playing in the distance seemed to sound a bit more melancholy as the alcohol settled into Javert's veins. He folded his arms on the table and put his head straight down, erasing the light from his eyes and quieting some of the din surrounding him. There, in his little huddled fortress, he could contemplate the magnitude of his failure.

He heard the clearing of a female throat and thought it was probably the serving wench demanding payment. He looked up wearily to see that a young woman of perhaps twenty or twenty-five had taken a seat across the table from him. She had luscious copper curls that were tucked into a bun, with a few tendrils falling around her heart-shaped face. Her green eyes glistened brightly, and her salmon-colored lips were plump and moist. She wore a calico dress in medium blue, deliberately cut very low indeed so that her generous bosom heaved from its neckline. Though she was naturally beautiful, Javert thought she wore her beauty garishly, in poor taste. Therefore, without much thought, he said to her,

"Mademoiselle, you ought to tell your pimp that soliciting a Commissaire de Police is a particularly bad idea."

The young woman looked a bit taken aback, but then giggled very quietly and said,

"I merely thought you looked lonely."

"That is quite deliberate, I assure you." Javert's voice was surly as he began to lower his head back into his arms. Just as he did, he felt the young woman's bold touch on his arm, urging him to look up at her.

"Monsieur le Commissaire," she murmured, and he could just barely hear her through the din of the tavern, "Whatever's bothering you, I can fix it."

Javert thought of arresting her right there, for creating such a fuss, but he wasn't sure with what he would charge her. She'd not outright solicited him for sex, and even if she had, prostitution was not entirely illegal in Paris. He could demand as a policeman that she leave him alone, but even as he looked into her emerald eyes and saw the heat there, he did not wish to demand that at all. Javert's eyes flicked down to her décolleté, where her breasts heaved with every breath. He felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch her there, just for something new and exciting and interesting… and forbidden. His throat felt abruptly dry, so he took a sip of wine, noticing he'd reached the bottom of the bottle.

"How much?" he croaked finally, knowing she knew precisely what he meant. She'd won him over, the little vixen, and she looked quite pleased with herself indeed.

"For you, Commissaire, five francs," she said, and it was a cheap price for a woman who looked so clean. Javert thought to himself that perhaps she really was giving him some sort of discount, so he took out ten francs and slid them across the table underneath his hand. When the young woman saw them, her eyes shimmered in glee for the briefest of moments, and then she smiled warmly at Javert and rose from her chair. "My name is Gabrielle," she said. "What shall I call you?"

"'Commissaire' will do just fine," Javert said, for he did not wish to reveal anything about himself to her. "Where will we go, then?"

"I've rented a room upstairs," she informed him matter-of-factly, "for things just such as this. It's the second room on the left. I shall go now. Meet me there in three minutes."

She was gone then, and Javert followed nervously after paying his tab. He stumbled a bit on the stairs, feeling more drunk than he had believed himself to be. He thought to himself sorrowfully that this was a pattern now – both times that Valjean had slipped through his fingers, he'd gotten drunk and taken a whore. How many more times would it have to happen? Only, this time, there was Éponine. Or was there? Was she with Marius at this very moment? At that thought, Javert walked more briskly up the stairs and to Gabrielle's room, thinking himself rather justified.

He knocked gently upon Gabrielle's door, and she opened it and quietly ushered him inside. She instantly began unbuttoning his jacket, as if she were afraid that he would change his mind. She slid the jacket from his shoulders and placed it delicately upon a little chair in the corner. The beams on the ceiling were low, low enough that Javert could reach up and touch them, and the little bed against the wall did not appear to be able to support both of them. He thought absently of this while Gabrielle unbuttoned his trousers and pulled them gently down.

"Stop," Javert said when she was about to pull them off. He looked at her. "I shall keep them and my shirt on."

"As you wish." Gabrielle did not look confused, and Javert thought she'd probably had all types in her time. For her part, she began unhooking the bodice of her dress, and Javert likewise stopped her.

"Simply raise your skirts," he told her. Now Gabrielle did look mildly perplexed, for it probably seemed odd to her that Javert wanted to have sex – for extra money – as clothed as possible. But Javert did not wish to be a tangled mass of sweaty limbs with a whore. It was not fitting or proper in any way. None of this really was, but the least he could do was maintain some semblance of restraint and modesty. He sat down upon the bed, his trousers parted just enough to allow him exit, and gestured for Gabrielle to sit beside him. "Kiss me, please," he murmured, and she did, leaning into him and gently touching her lips to his while coursing her hands around the back of his head.

Her fingernails gently scratched his scalp, causing him a delightful tingling sensation, while her tongue eased its way around his lips. When Javert stubbornly refused to open his mouth to her, Gabrielle obligingly moved her lips and tongue to his neck, and he began moaning vociferously at the feel of a new mouth there. She moved more enthusiastically when he started moaning, tracing her nails soothingly down his spine. It was enough to make Javert sufficiently hard, and he thought the foreplay ought to stop with that. All he was here for was a release, liberation from frustration and fury and wrath, and to kill time. He was not here for intimacy or love. He could get that at home… couldn't he?

At the thought that perhaps he couldn't, perhaps that love was being given to Marius, he angrily hauled Gabrielle onto his lap. She squealed as Javert drove himself into her, urging her to ride him as he sat on the bed. She moved on him, rocking back and forth with her skirts splayed out around them so that Javert could not even see what was going on beneath them. He could only feel it, and the visual denial actually made the experience all the more erotic. She moaned for him, and though he was sure she felt no pleasure at all, he enjoyed the sounds of her moans thoroughly.

Javert felt himself grow inside of her, harder and more anxious to explode, and in an instant of impulsivity he whipped her off of him and plunked her onto her hands and knees on the bed. Gabrielle tossed her hair and looked over her shoulder at him with a wicked grin as he shoved her skirts high above her waist. Javert did not smile in return, but rather gritted his teeth as he pushed with all his might into her and pistoned fiercely. It did not take long at all before he felt himself about to finish, and he pulled out of her.

The very last thing he wanted was the uncertainty of knowing whether or not he had a bastard somewhere in Paris. So, he came onto the alabaster cheek of her buttocks, watching his seed ooze and drip as he writhed on his knees in ecstasy. He cried out in a mighty bellow, not caring who in the dodgy tavern might hear him.

When at last he had put himself to rights and reminded himself that Gabrielle had already been paid, he walked wordlessly from her room. Outside the context of passion, he was suddenly disgusted what he had done. He did feel a sense of release, though, a sense that the day's failure was not for nothing. He began to walk home – stumble, more like, wondering angrily if he would arrive to an empty house. He probably would, he told himself. She was probably lying with Marius right now.

He got this thought so thoroughly burrowed into his drunken mind that when he blundered through his front door and saw Éponine sitting at the dining room table, reading a book, he blinked a few times before reacting.

Then he dissolved into a crumpled mess on his knees, heaving with guilty sobs and feeling as though he would vomit. What on Earth had he done? He'd gotten drunk; he'd fucked a whore, and why? Because he had lost Valjean? No - because he had not trusted Éponine.

She rushed over to him and dragged him to his feet, struggling to guide him down the hallway to the bedroom. He was only vaguely aware of Éponine's diminutive hands on his buttons, taking off his jacket, of her shucking his boots and urging him to lie down in bed.

Finally, he managed to quiet himself and looked up at her sad little face staring down at him. He felt her palm on his cheek, and the sensation only served to make another hot tear work its way from his eye.

"You smell of wine and sex," Éponine told him, looking herself like she might begin to cry. She took a trembling breath and appeared to steady herself. There were many things that needed to be said and yet neither of them seemed to want to say them. Éponine glared down at Javert and, without warning, slapped him. Then, melting into tears, she leaned down to kiss the cheek she had just slapped. She moved her lips to his ear and whispered in a livid voice, "You will take a bath in the morning."

* * *

Javert's sleep was more troubled than he would have imagined it possible for it to be without waking. He had nightmarish visions, over and again, of Valjean's face, mocking him for his inept police work. He felt queasy even in his sleep from his drunkenness, and he dreamed that Éponine had been gone in the morning; she'd taken everything he'd given her and returned to Saint Michel. In Javert's dream, he had never seen her again, for each time he tried to go to her, he walked in circles and could never find her.

When at last Javert's sleep was so disturbed that it caused him to wake, his eyes cracked open and he realized he was still wearing his white work shirt and trousers. It was dark outside, where it had still been light when Éponine had put him to bed, but the clock on the opposite wall read precisely midnight.

Javert looked beside him and saw that Éponine was not in bed with him, and, although disappointed, he could not say he was entirely surprised. He achingly rose to his feet and resolved to find her, deciding that now was as good a time as any to issue a sincere apology.

There was no fire lit in the bedroom's fireplace, as the night was warm and sticky, so Javert could see very little in the darkness. He walked to the little desk across the room, stumbling in the night, and opened its creaky drawer. He fumbled in the dark and finally extracted his metal tinderbox. Opening the little box, he pulled out the charcloth and the ornately curved firesteel he'd bought in Calais years earlier. He then pinged open the glass door of the lantern on the table, pulled out the candle inside, and flicked at his firesteel with a flint until he'd lit the candle itself. Finally, he had a light, and the room was bathed in a dim ginger glow.

Javert carried the lantern from the room and went first to the study and parlor. They were quiet as the grave and completely empty. Javert had only one room left to check before he realized his nightmare of Éponine being gone might be a horrible reality. He reached the end of the hallway with trepidation pounding in his chest and pushed open the door of the golden yellow bedroom. Holding up his light to see, he beheld her sleeping form in the spare bed, her face frowning in sleep, a handkerchief crumpled tightly in her fist as she slumbered.

He'd made her cry. He could see that. He'd made her weep and feel as though she could not sleep beside him, and for that he was an absolute scoundrel. Javert looked down at his own body and saw the remnants of Gabrielle's cosmetics upon his white dress shirt. Horrified and disgusted, he strode quickly from the spare bedroom, his mind spinning. He returned to his own bedroom – the one he was supposed to share with Éponine – and quickly set to building a fire in the fireplace.

When the flames were raging, licking the bricks in their eagerness to burn, Javert quite literally ripped his shirt from his chest and sent buttons flying through the room. He began tearing the fabric maniacally, enraged at himself for what he'd done while wearing it. His eyes burned with anger and shame and loathing as he whipped the shirt into the fire and watched with some degree of satisfaction as the white fabric instantly charred black. He could still see, at the last moment of the shirt's existence, the whore's lip rouge upon the shirt's fabric just before it went up in flames. His stomach roiled with nausea.

He thought about burning his trousers, too, and was in the process of removing them when he heard a little voice from the door behind him.

"You're already down a pair from the riot; we shall have those laundered."

Javert did not turn to face Éponine, for he did not have the stomach for it. He realized his rear end was bare to her and was abruptly self-conscious, and pulled the trousers back up, buttoning them quickly.

"Your self-pity is rather distressing, you know." Éponine had taken a step into the room. "I waited all the while for you to come home, wondering where you'd gone, when you'd be back. I did not consider that you were off with another woman. Is she very pretty?"

She was not crying, but instead sounded very angry, and that made Javert feel quite small. He sighed a little, looking into the fire.

"Answer me!" Éponine demanded. "Does she worry for you and think of you her every waking moment? Does she tell you how much she loves you?"

Javert could simply shake his head no as Éponine stalked in front of him, her eyes blazing with wild rage and hurt. Her words were like the fire behind her, searing through Javert's skin as hot as a poker. She shattered then, her wrath detonating like a mortar.

"Then _why_," she demanded in a proper shout, "did you feel the need to be with her, whoever she was?"

"I lost him," Javert said by way of explanation, for it was the only explanation he had.

"What? Who?" Éponine was still shouting, her hands now on the hips of her white nightgown.

"Jean Valjean."

Javert had explained to Éponine that there was a fugitive who'd escaped his grasp one too many times before, the one called Jean Valjean, Monsieur Madeleine, and now only God knew what he called himself. '24601' was how Javert would always think of him. That's what he'd told Éponine. She was well acquainted with the saga. Now she simply looked exasperated.

"What are you _talking_ about?" she demanded, holding out her hands desperately.

"I saw him." Javert's voice was little more than a whisper as he looked past her into the fire. "I was walking through the rue de l'Ouest and I saw him in a carriage. I chased them, but I lost him." He sighed through his nose and shook his head, shrugging hopelessly.

Éponine did not look as though she empathized too terribly much.

"That is supposed to be your logic for adultery?" she exclaimed, her voice little less than a hysterical shriek. "So, what, Husband, you went off and found some whore upon whom you took out your frustrations?"

"That is precisely what happened," Javert nodded, looking directly at her for the first time and feeling somewhat relieved that she understood what was going on. Her eyes went wide and she looked, if possible, even angrier.

"Why would you not come home and do that with _me_?" she shouted. "I am your wife!"

"We had quarreled, and, anyway, I assumed you would be not at home, but instead with Monsieur Pontmercy." Javert did not realize how much worse his every word was making the situation. Éponine looked so taken aback that she staggered for a moment before exclaiming,

"You… you assumed I would be adulterous, and so you saw that as license for you yourself to behave in such a way?"

Put in those words, it sounded even worse than Javert had credited himself, and he said nothing, only breathed as steadily as he could through his nose and blinked slowly, looking at his stockings.

Éponine pushed past Javert and stormed from the room, rushing out into the hallway. Javert grasped the lantern and quickly followed her, listening as she muttered,

"This is far too much. I would rather you said it was a long-term affair, that you'd fallen in love. A whore. A bloody whore. Am I worth nothing to you?"

She was pacing, through the dining room and parlor, frenetically and as if she were a rat trapped in a cage.

"Please, Éponine, go back to bed and we will discuss it in the morning." Javert was desperate. He had no idea what to say to her, if he was honest, and she looked as though she might do something drastic.

"No!" she cried. "There is nothing to discuss! _You_ go back to bed, and when you wake I shall be long gone. You shall never be bothered with me again."

Javert put the lantern down on the table in the parlor and strode quickly to where Éponine was pacing in circles around a chair. He grabbed her wrists, quite desperate to talk some sense into her, but she struggled to get free.

"Let me go!" she howled, trying to wrench herself from him, but he was far stronger. She looked panicked then, as if he had inadvertently brought her back to the night of her rape, and she began to sob uncontrollably. Javert instinctively let her wrists go, and she collapsed into a heaving heap on the floor.

Javert hated himself in that moment, more deeply than he'd ever hated anyone before. He looked around himself. Here he was, in a lovely house with a lovely wife to whom he'd shown nothing but contempt. He'd destroyed their love and now she lay crying upon his floor, loathing him almost as much as he loathed himself.

Or so he thought, for then she croaked in between sobs,

"Don't you have any notion of how very much I love you?"

She looked up at him with pitiful eyes that were soaked wet with tears, desperate to be loved in return, and at that Javert could take no more. He snatched the lantern and turned and dashed from the room, hurrying next door to his bedroom.

In the dim light of the bedroom, he whipped open the same drawer from which he'd extracted his tinderbox, and he pulled out the police dagger he occasionally wore with his dress uniform. He unsheathed it and turned its blade toward his bare stomach. The prick of the pointed blade against his flesh made him hesitate for the briefest of instants before plunging it into his abdomen and killing himself for what he'd done to Éponine.

Then, from behind him –

"No, you fool!"

Éponine snatched at the knife, trying to get it away from Javert. She could see precisely what he was doing and was desperate to keep him from committing suicide. Well, Javert would have none of that.

He'd done worse unto her than he'd ever thought himself capable of doing. He'd let Valjean slip through his fingers and would probably never see the thief again. He'd failed in every capacity of his life. The most merciful thing anyone could do in this instant was to simply let Javert die.

And, yet, here was Éponine, grasping and seizing desperately, trying to get the knife away from him. Javert shoved at her and moved to plunge the knife, but then Éponine leapt over his arm and grabbed the blade of the knife, wrenching it away from Javert's gut.

She screamed in pain, and before Javert knew what had happened, her white nightgown was soaked with blood and she was rolling around on the ground. Javert's head was buzzing. He'd not killed himself. He had not been permitted to die, but something else had happened, and he needed to snap to rights and realize what was going on. He quickly knelt down beside Éponine and turned her over, drenching himself in her blood as he did. She was clutching her right hand in her left, moaning quietly in agony, and Javert then saw the damage.

Her right palm was sliced clean open, so that it was nearly severed in two, with blood pouring forth from the gaping wound. She'd opened her hand while grabbing the knife away from him. Her thumb was also almost off, and she cradled her hand close to her chest, reluctant to let Javert get a good look. He panicked, realizing that if she bled for much longer, she would be gone.

But then, Éponine looked up at him with nothing but relief in her eyes and whispered very softly,

"Thank God. Thank God, my love. You are alive."

* * *

Éponine's wound took four months to heal properly, but even three weeks into the process, Javert was not entirely sure she was even going to live.

For the first week, his guilt overwhelmed him so terribly that he could hardly bring himself to work or to see her in the hospital, where she languished recovering from the severe blood loss. Then her wound festered and she became horrifically ill, her high fever causing delusions and hallucinations. This only fed Javert's guilt, for he knew that without his adultery and suicidal ideations, she would not be lying in a hospital bed pointing aimlessly at the ceiling with a thickly bandaged hand.

Eventually, her fever subsided, and after five weeks in the hospital, they removed the dozens of stitches that patched her hand back into one piece. Javert was there when they did it. They pulled the thread out, one stitch at a time, and with each stitch Javert said a little prayer asking forgiveness. They were able to save her thumb, thankfully, but Éponine could not move the digit very effectively and said she had very little feeling in the skin there. The scars would be awful.

Javert wracked his brain trying to think of ways to cheer Éponine's spirits once she was well enough to notice that he was trying. He'd had a few new dresses made for her based off the ones she already had, much finer ones than she'd ever owned. He had bought for her a new silver hairbrush, and he'd even procured for her a lovely golden chain with a little pearl pendant on it. No matter what he bought, and as much as Éponine smiled at him when he gave her gifts, it never served to make Javert feel any better for what he'd done to her. A part of him, a large part, felt that their relationship was indelibly damaged.

One day in late September, she was settled into the bed in the gold bedroom, her face still gaunt and pale as her body fought to make new blood and rebound from infection. Javert was making her a kettle of hot water and lemon juice to soothe her, and he began singing quietly to himself, as he'd been wont to do over the past few months. Javert was known in his young military days to have a pleasing, if somewhat gruff, voice. He recalled now a song that he'd sung many a time with his fellow soldiers in the early days of the Napoleonic Wars in which he'd served.

"_O, lorsque sur ces pierres que je tombe,_

_Faire pour moi une catacombe,_

_et mettre à côté de moi tous mes amis._

_C'est ce que vous avez promis."_

He sang the beautiful dirge in his low, growling sort of voice as he carried the hot lemon water down the hall to Éponine, and when he opened her door, she looked at him with mild surprise in her hollow, shadowed eyes.

"I'd no idea you could sing," she noted, gratefully taking the lemon water from him and sipping it as though it were her very life force.

"I fear I can not," Javert shook his head and smiled halfheartedly. He watched as Éponine sipped her lemon water and murmured sorrowfully, "You've lost the entire summer, I fear."

"Autumn is my favorite season," Éponine promised, setting down the empty teacup on the little table beside the bed and grinning weakly at Javert. "I should like to go for a walk, I think. Perhaps in the park?"

On this particular day, Javert did not have work, but he glanced out the window and noticed that the weather was rather questionable for walking in the park. It was cloudy and windy, and Javert could feel the autumn chill through the walls. However, if Éponine was feeling up to a walk, then a walk it would be.

She no longer had bandages on her hand, her wound having closed permanently a few weeks earlier, but Javert almost wished that she did. He constantly had to see the wide gash that was scarring and healing across her palm and thumb, and it made his stomach sick each time he looked at it. She'd cried about the scars, once or twice, in the night. She would never admit, of course, that she'd cried over them, but Javert knew that they were the cause of her tears. But she was not a petty woman, and she'd not appeared to dwell on the scars themselves for long, at least not for aesthetic reasons.

Now, as Javert helped her get dressed, he tried desperately to avoid looking at the scars. He tied her into her stays, careful not to tug the draws too tightly, and pulled her new sage green brocade dress over her head. She wore sturdy black walking shoes and pulled on the cape that she'd bought months earlier with five francs that she'd earned for spying. Seeing her in that cape again made Javert sadly nostalgic. Seven months ago, he'd met this beautiful creature, he told himself, and look at what he'd done to her since.

They went for a walk in the Jardin du Luxembourg, which was not far from the house. Because of the abominable weather, there was hardly anybody else out. At first, Javert simply walked beside Éponine in silence. He wore his police uniform, mostly because he was not sure how to wear anything else. He realized with a start that this was the first time they'd gone out in public together – really, truly gone out in public, where anybody and everybody could see that they were a couple. In a way, it frightened him, and in another way, it made him feel liberated.

As he sighed, considering this, Éponine asked, "What is it, my love?"

"We've not walked outside together like this before," Javert noted to her, reaching between them and taking her gloved hand in his. He knew that beneath that glove were the scars, but he held fast to her hand nonetheless.

She smiled softly up at him, her face peeking out from underneath the brim of her cape hood, and she replied, "No. We've not. We should, perhaps, do so more often."

"Are you feeling much better?" Javert asked worriedly.

"Much, thank you, though I confess I am fidgety and impatient from all the bed rest. I'm quite ready to live my life again."

Javert frowned a bit at that. He would not be alive if she'd not sacrificed herself for him, and in her sacrifice she'd cost herself months of her own life. His guilt, once again, roiled in his stomach.

Seeing his frown, Éponine added quickly, "I should like to start living it with you, my love. I miss you terribly."

Javert looked down into her wide brown eyes, a bit confused. "I see you each day," he said, shaking his head confusedly.

"No. I do not think you understand." Éponine stopped walking and drew herself quite close to Javert. Her sudden intimacy made him panic a bit, and he looked around quickly to see who was watching. They were quite alone in the little walkway they traversed, between two rows of trees. Éponine gazed into Javert's eyes and murmured playfully, "I _miss you_ terribly."

Suddenly understanding exactly what she meant, and wanting her more badly than he could say, Javert cleared his throat and suggested,

"Perhaps we ought to head home, then."

"Do you miss me, as well?" Éponine pressed, not allowing Javert to step away from her. Feeling his breath quiver, Javert nodded quickly in response.

"I do," he answered, his voice a croaking whisper.

Then Éponine did something that shocked him, for it was so public, so broadcast and shared and exposed, that he was stunned even as it happened. She placed her hands on Javert's broad chest and leaned up to kiss him, planting her lips on his warmly for the first time in months.

It was as though they'd never kissed. The touch of her lips to his seared like fire. It felt gloriously new and yet comfortably familiar. Right there, on the path in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Javert moaned into Éponine's mouth, before coming quickly to his senses and taking an astonished step away from her.

"Éponine," he murmured in an appalled voice, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and looking away toward a tree. But when he looked at her, standing there in the cape she'd bought a half a year earlier, her face looking positively angelic despite its pallor, it was impossible to be angry. Instead, he simply stood up straight, pulled down the hem of his jacket, and cleared his throat. Then Javert suggested in a calm voice, "Let's go home."

* * *

By the time they made it home, it was obvious each had been fantasizing a bit too enthusiastically about what they would do upon arriving. They burst in through the door, Éponine giggling and Javert simply moving as quickly as he could. Then, before he truly knew what was going on, Javert had her pinned to the wall in the hallway and was briskly untying the laces at the neck of her cape. It fell to the floor, and Éponine continued to laugh in her eager happiness.

More pieces of clothing came off, one by one, as they made their way slowly down the hallway, stopping here and there to remove an item and kiss passionately against the wall. When at last the only cloth between them was Javert's pair of woolen trousers and Éponine's chemise, he pressed her hard against the wall and drove his firm and insistent erection against her. Éponine whipped the chemise up and over her head, shucking it impatiently. To see her bare body again, after so many months of being deprived the divine vision, made Javert even harder in his trousers.

Her breasts were as round and firm as he remembered them, her waist as small and shapely. There was a gentle curve to her hips over which he swept his palms gently, relishing the womanly arc. He moaned aloud at the feel and look of her, and she arched her back as his hands coursed over her sensitive flesh. Javert's hand made its way between her thighs and felt the intense wetness there, felt how moist and ready she was, and he brushed his calloused fingertips through the pearly dampness there with delight. Bringing his fingertips to his mouth, he tasted her metallic tang and smiled, realizing it was her essence, her substance and spirit, which he swept over his lips.

He could take it no longer, feeling as though he might honestly lose himself in his trousers, and unbuttoned them hastily to allow himself exit. He was going to leave them on, for he was in a great hurry to commence the action at hand. Éponine shook her head playfully and tugged his trousers down past his knees, wrapping her arms about him to dig her fingers into the soft flesh of his backside and draw him near.

They'd never made love against a wall. There had been the one time that Javert had been tempted to do so, before they were married, but he'd restrained himself. This time there would be no restraint. He hoisted Éponine up so that her left leg wrapped itself around his muscular waist. Then he bent down to achieve the proper angle and guided himself into her entrance, thrusting upward into her.

The sensation of entering her was as if he'd never made love before, as if he were an absolute virgin. Immediately, Javert had to stop, for he knew this would last only moments if he were not quite careful. Éponine laced her arms around his shoulders and clasped her hands behind his neck, urging him to move in her, but Javert felt the heat in his body cuing him to take a moment of respite from the passion.

When at last he'd calmed himself, Javert began moving again, very slowly, and he knew that his motions were causing a good deal of pleasant friction between himself and Éponine, for she was moaning vociferously and repeating his name. After only about four minutes, though, Javert could feel himself quickly approaching a point of no return, and he began quickening his movements to maximize his pleasure. He burst into Éponine not long after, feeling himself come into her with the familiar but much-missed sensation of dizziness and heat in his head and ears. She cried out not long after, finally experiencing her own climax.

Javert pulled out of her and drew her into a close embrace, the two of them standing nude and panting in the dim hallway. He struggled to catch his breath, inhaling deeply the scent of lavender from Éponine's hair. Her thin little back heaved as she also fought to regain control of her body, and then the moment was shattered by a knock on the front door.

Éponine looked worriedly up at Javert, surprise shining in her brown eyes.

"Gather your clothes. Go into the bedroom and shut the door," Javert ordered. Éponine did as he commanded. Javert hurried to yank on his trousers and threw on his white shirt. He was still buttoning it when he reached the door, upon which whomever had knocked was insistently knocking again.

"Commissaire Javert?" a voice called through the door.

"I am coming, Monsieur," Javert said loudly in response, doing up the last two buttons of his shirt hastily and realizing he looked rather a mess.

He threw open the door and saw his Contrôleur Général standing in the doorway, holding his uniform hat in his hand.

Javert bowed to his superior and said curtly, "Monsieur le Contrôleur. What may I do for you?"

"If you'd be so kind as to grant me admittance, Javert, I've a matter of great importance to discuss with you," said the officer.

Javert let him in, and within a few minutes the two men were seated in the study in the wingback chairs before a roaring fire. Javert had put his uniform jacket back on, and absently, in the back of his mind, he realized that Éponine was hiding out in the bedroom, unable to come out and greet the officer because she could not dress herself properly. Women's clothing, he thought distantly, was entirely ridiculous in that way.

"Again, Monsieur, I ask how I may be of service," Javert said finally, when they were seated comfortably. The Contrôleur Général was a man not much older than Javert, but he was no longer involved in patrol work. Instead, his job was to assign and reassign officers to precints and districts.

"I shall get straight to the point, Javert," the man said, his graying beard twitching a bit as though he were uncomfortable. "Several of the prefects have been discussing the situation in Lyon."

Javert looked a bit confused. He knew that there was a bit of unrest in Lyon, but so there was across the entire country. What made Lyon special? Sensing his confusion, the Contrôleur Général continued,

"The poor economy has resulted in a massive drop in the price of Lyonnais silk. This, in turn, means the workers are being paid less. They do not wish to fall into the bowels of extreme poverty; so, they are attempting to impose a minimum price of silk. We do not believe that the manufacturers not the consumers of the silk will be amicable to this idea in the slightest. The fear is that open revolt will result from the discontent and disagreement. Poverty breeds unrest; you know that as well as I do, Javert. In the case of Lyon, it could spell disaster that might spread throughout the entire country."

Javert felt his heart sink. The situation was more dire than he'd known. He gulped and asked,

"Then what, Monsieur le Contrôleur, may I do to ameliorate the situation from here in Paris?"

"Very little," answered the Contrôleur Général with a chuckle, looking into the fire. "That is why you are being sent to Lyon."

Javert's eyebrows shot up as he considered whether or not he'd heard his superior correctly. "Sent to Lyon?" he repeated, leaning forward in his chair.

"You may bring your lovely wife if you wish," the Contrôleur Général assured him, looking away from the fire to meet Javert's worried gaze. "It is only until the situation subsides there. It may be only a few months. Your transport and lodging will all be provided. Your calm and leadership will prove invaluable in such a volatile situation, Javert. The prefects have all agreed that your presence is necessary as part of a bolstered police authority in Lyon."

Javert's eyes were wide with shock as he registered his orders. He nodded briskly, stood, and bowed. "Monsieur le Contrôleur, when do I leave?" he asked.

"In three days' time," the Contrôleur Général nodded curtly, rising from his chair as well. "Make arrangements to have your home cared for in your absence and pack a few trunks of what you will need. Report to the central police station in the morning on Thursday."

Javert simply nodded again, still stunned.

"I know you mentioned your wife has not been well?" His superior raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Will she be able to accompany you?"

"I believe she will be well enough, Monsieur," Javert affirmed, thinking quickly back to their tryst in the hallway not a half hour previously. She had seemed just fine then.

Javert showed the Contrôleur Général out before stalking slowly and cautiously down the hallway toward the bedroom. Éponine poked her head out of the door, having heard the front door close, and asked,

"What's going on?"

"Pack your things," Javert said with a heavy sigh. "We are going to Lyon."

* * *

Five days into the journey to Lyon, Javert's back was aching so terribly from ten hours per day in the carriage that he finally insisted they take a half day's rest at Corbigny in Burgundy. They stopped at a little inn around noon and would not carry on until the next morning.

When the carriage pulled up to the inn in the town of Corbigny, Éponine looked rightly nostalgic, and Javert recalled that she herself had grown up in an inn rather like this one. He asked the innkeeper for decent rooms for themselves and the driver, but had decided not to splurge, given that his lodging was being covered by the various prefects of police.

The inn was not yet crawling with drunkards, for it was lunch time, and its tavern was serving only bread and wine and a little meat. As Javert and Éponine sat down at a table and were brought food by the innkeeper's wife, Éponine searched her face with skepticism as if she might see in it the viciousness of her own mother.

But the kindly woman simply smiled gently at Éponine and asked, "Anything else I can get you, my dear?"

Snapped to her senses, Éponine shook her head humbly and murmured, "No, Madame. Thank you."

"Commissaire." The innkeeper's wife curtsied to Javert before leaving, and Éponine watched her do it with some curiosity.

"Why is everyone so oddly deferential since you've had your promotion?" she asked once the woman was out of range.

Javert shrugged and ripped off a bite of the tough bread with his teeth. Chewing it ponderously, he shook his head and answered, "I should think there to be a rather sizeable difference between an ordinary officer, an Inspector, and a Commissaire de Police. The new rank undoubtedly carries heavier clout."

Éponine shook her head firmly and sipped her wine carefully. She looked as though she'd been thinking of this for quite some time. "No," she said. "I think it is that you've been carrying yourself differently. More severely."

Javert actually chuckled at that, an act he rarely performed, and asked, "Is that possible?"

"Apparently."

Javert rubbed his cheek heavily with his hand, and his expression turned serious as he looked into Éponine's searching brown eyes. "These are difficult times to be a policeman," he noted, "and it is always difficult to be a good husband when one has wasted his youth not learning how."

Éponine smiled mildly at him and reached for his hand across the table, prying his fingers gently from his cheek and entangling them in hers. "You are a fine husband," she assured him.

"And you," he chuckled again, "are a fine liar. But I have great love for you nonetheless."

* * *

When they'd finished eating and had a trunk apiece brought up to their room, Javert and Éponine decided a mid-afternoon nap was not entirely unwarranted given their fatigue from travel.

The innkeeper's wife opened the door to the room and Javert beheld its stooped ceiling, small double bed that sat low to the floor, little washbasin, and dusty window with a degree of gratitude. He was thoroughly exhausted. And, yet, something about the room reminded him of the mad half hour he'd spent with a whore, and it made him uneasy. Éponine did not seem to think of any such thing, and had settled onto the bed before the innkeeper's wife was even fully gone from the room. The ropes beneath the lumpy mattress groaned beneath even her minuscule weight, and Javert shuddered to think what his lummox of a form would do to its rickety frame.

Nevertheless, he locked the door behind the innkeeper's wife and began stripping off his boots and jacket. It was chilly in the small room, and he went to build a fire in its stunted fireplace, but found a limited supply of wood and tinder. The fire he made was thus quite small, and he murmured to Éponine,

"Body heat, then."

She giggled and nodded, urging him to get her out of her calico dress, in which it was not terribly comfortable to recline, he could see. She stood before him and Javert unbuttoned the dress for her, peeling it back from her milky shoulders and helping her step out of it. Javert made a move to lie down upon the bed.

"My stays," Éponine chided him. "They're not terribly comfortable, either, you know."

"No, of course not," Javert sighed with mock indignation, and unlaced the garment for her. He noted with some pride how dexterous and able he had become at efficiently and effectively unclothing a woman in the past eight months.

Éponine kicked off her dusty black leather shoes and climbed onto the bed alongside Javert, snuggling her head into his chest and tossing a leg carelessly across his lap. Javert, who lay in some comfort on his back, shut his eyes and relished the feeling of her body flush against him, melded into him.

They lay like that for a while, in absolute silence, listening only to the sound of the little crackling fire, until Javert felt his buttons being undone one at a time by Éponine's skillful hand, felt her fingers coursing over his chest and trailing down his abdomen. He moaned a little, very softly, his eyes still shut. Though he could feel himself growing a bit hard at her touches, Éponine thankfully ignored his burgeoning erection. Javert reached up and, with his own calloused fingertips, stroked her cheek very gently. They were both content to just lie here and brush hands over skin, in an instant regaining some of the intimacy they'd lost in the past few months.

Javert felt a little tear squeeze out of his closed eye, for he could not help dwelling on what he had done to her, though he knew she would not want him to do so. Indeed, she knowingly reached up and swept the tear away, wordlessly, and kissed the spot where it had formed a trail.

"We are together. All is well," she whispered into his ear, reaching across him to twirl her fingers in the cropped hair on his head. "I love you."

* * *

They fell asleep like that, tangled in one another's company, for hours. They were awakened around dusk by the sound of the evening crowd coming into the inn to drink and eat. Thinking that perhaps they ought to get some supper before there was no more to be had, Javert and Éponine dressed and headed blearily down the stairs into the stuffy, smoky dining room.

When they were again seated at a table, a man approached Javert and asked shyly,

"Monsieur le Commissaire?"

"Yes?" Javert sniffed a bit as he looked up from his wine. Before him stood a shabby little middle-aged man with his hat held nervously in his hands.

"My neighbor and I have a bit of a dispute between us, and we was wondering if perhaps you might be inclined to decide which one of us is on the right side of the law."

Javert sighed a bit to himself. Even while traveling, there was no rest for a lawman, but he would truly have it no other way. He nodded brusquely to the man and rose from the table, turning to Éponine.

"I shall be but a moment. Will you be quite all right?"

She nodded eagerly and reminded him, "I grew up in a place such as this. I shall be just fine."

Javert supposed she was quite right, and he followed the man across the tavern to a little table where a more menacing-looking, younger man sat.

"What seems to be the problem?" Javert asked.

It was very difficult to make out the exact nature of the strife between the men, for they continuously talked over one another and interrupted, but eventually Javert was able to discern that it was a boundary dispute on their farms. From what he could tell, the younger man had begun encroaching over the older man's property line. While the young fool did not argue that the boundary line was indeed where it lay, he argued that because the land in question was not in use by the older man, it was open to his own use.

"I'm sorry, Monsieur, but I'm afraid you are quite wrong," Javert told the younger man. "Property lines exist to create clear delineations between ownership. Use of the land is irrelevant. You are to retreat to your own side of the boundary, or this man will have just cause to take you to court."

The younger man looked as though he would have threatened to bloody well kill the older man if Javert had not been there, so Javert was hesitant to leave. But then his eyes flicked back toward Éponine and he saw that she was abruptly surrounded by a pack of men.

"If you gentlemen are quite finished, I shall take my leave," Javert said hurriedly, and the men stood respectfully. Javert bowed and hustled across the tavern. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded of a young man who seemed like a complete dandy. He was reaching out for Éponine's hair, as if he wanted to stroke it, but Éponine had batted his hand away.

The young man, obviously drunk, turned to Javert and said blearily, "Wasn't doing anything wrong, Monsieur le Commissaire. Was just telling this mademoiselle here how lovely she is. How much I'd like to bed her and forget her."

He and his companions had a good laugh at that, slapping their knees gleefully.

Feeling his blood boil with rage, Javert abruptly wanted to cause the man physical pain. He was much larger than the little piece of scum and knew he could knock him out cold with two or three solid punches, but he merely clenched his fists at his sides and gritted his teeth.

"Step away from her," Javert insisted in a low growl.

"All right, all right." The blonde, scrawny little dandy put his hands up defensively, as if he sensed Javert's anger more acutely than Javert credited him. But then, foolishly, as he stepped away, he said to his friends, "You'd think she was his bloody concubine."

Javert grabbed the dandy's shoulder and whirled him around to face him. Looking momentarily frightened, the young man made his smile disappear as a hush fell over the tavern.

"She is my wife," Javert hissed, through clenched teeth, and shoved the dandy back to his equally prissy friends.

The friends looked to the dandy with shock and amusement written on their faces, waiting for him to do something else to goad Javert. The dandy appeared to gather his courage and joked boldly,

"Then perhaps you ought to arrest yourself for robbery, Monsieur le Commissaire. Cradle robbery!"

Suddenly, for everyone but Javert and Éponine, the tension in the room was alleviated, and the tavern erupted in laughter. The violin struck back up, everyone resumed drinking and conversation, and the dandies strutted out the front door. Javert, left feeling humiliated and shaken, turned to Éponine and gestured for her to follow him upstairs.

"I've not finished eating," she protested.

"No matter," Javert said firmly. "We are not leaving our room until the morning."

* * *

Five days later, the carriage rolled into Lyon.

At first, Javert could not see what all the fuss was, why he'd been called here. It seemed a perfectly workable, normal city in south-central France - hillier than he'd expected, perhaps, and with a few speakers of the nearly unintelligible Arpitan dialect, but pleasant enough and less crowded than Paris.

The carriage proceeded into the Presqu'île, the area that made up the city center, where Javert would be living and would be based. As they proceeded, Javert pointed out to Éponine the Croix-Russe, the hill where the silk industry was based and where much of the trouble was rumored to be taking place.

"Why are we not living there, then?" asked Éponine as they rode along in the carriage, and Javert gave her a wry smile.

"I've already had one riot outside my home," he reminded her. "I'm not anxious for another. We will be living instead in a flat near the Place des Terreaux."

The flat itself turned out to be modest, more so than their home in Paris, but perfectly serviceable, and Javert turned to Éponine and shrugged as their trunks were brought up the three flights of stairs that led to the flat.

"All I can say, I suppose, is thank you, Éponine," he murmured, "for accompanying me on this assignment."

"It's an adventure!" Éponine insisted, throwing open the shutters in the one and only bedroom and letting in some out some of the musty air.

"I shall make arrangements for a maid and cook as soon as I get acquainted with the Prefect," Javert assured her, but Éponine laughed aloud.

"For nearly my entire life, Husband, I have gone without such luxury. Allow me to cook and to clean while we are here. Spare the expense, I beg you. It will keep me occupied during the day, in any case." She ran her finger along the side of the dusty armoire and looked at it with a grin. "It can use quite a scrubbing. I shall begin tomorrow."

Javert felt a sudden surge of tenderness for her, an appreciation for her domesticity and for her humility, and he drew her close to him and put his heavy hands upon her shoulders. He looked into her shining brown eyes and whispered,

"How did I find you?"

"In an alley, committing a crime," Éponine reminded him with a wry smile, and Javert smirked, for he knew that full well and had not been asking literally.

Javert left Éponine to unpack clothing and the few belongings they had brought while he proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville, the City Hall, to meet with the Prefect of Police. The man turned out to be a few years younger than Javert, to the elder man's chagrin. His strawberry blonde beard was not yet graying and his tall, lean form moved with the ease of youth. Yet, the man was curt and professional, and so Javert had respect for him.

"Monsieur le Prefet, I am at your service," Javert said, once he'd been shown to the Prefect's desk. "My name is Commissaire Javert from Paris. I believe you have been expecting me."

"Indeed I have," answered the Prefect, and he gestured for Javert to sit in the chair opposite his desk. "Thank you for coming to Lyon, Commissaire Javert. I appreciate your travel, truly. Our city has experienced as of late a series of rumblings and riots that have threatened to explode into a city-wide conflagration of rebellion. I'm sure you are familiar with the strife over silk prices?"

"I am," Javert nodded.

"Well, it's just gotten worse, I'm afraid." The prefect shook his head and looked exhausted. "Demand from America and elsewhere has slipped and, coupled with the low demand domestically, our industry can hardly sustain itself. The manufacturers flatly refuse a minimum price; they just want to sell their product and make some semblance of a profit. They want to remain in business. Yet, the silk workers must eat. Denying a man his family's bread easily transforms that man into a rebel, Monsieur le Commissaire."

Javert nodded knowingly. "Indeed," he agreed. "There is little more volatile in all the world than a hungry populace."

"The grain shortages haven't helped, of course," the Prefect said woefully. "The price of bread has nearly doubled in the last six weeks. We are sitting on a veritable powder-keg here in Lyon, Monsieur le Commissaire. We need a bolstered police force. I ask that you conduct daily patrols in the silk district, where most of the workers live, and around the factories. Be on the watch for those who appear to be spreading discontent and... Ideas. At the slightest suspicion, bring an offender to be held for a few days and released if there is nothing with which to charge him. Be especially watchful for the increased crime that is occurring, and for any hints of illegal sedition."

Javert nodded. "It sounds perfectly reasonable, Monsieur le Prefet. How long do you expect me here?"

"Until the situation is firmly under control and I can give you back," the Prefect shrugged, "or until Paris itself has such troubles, whichever comes first."

Disconcerted by the latter suggestion, Javert gulped a bit and nodded. "Thank you, Monsieur le Prefet."

While on his way home, Javert passed by the brand-new Opéra National de Lyon, which had just opened in July. He thought on it for only a moment before stopping by the box office and purchasing two tickets for that evening for himself and Éponine to see Rossini's Guillaume Tell. He bought the tickets for a box, mainly because he did not wish to sit among the populace of Lyon as a Parisian police officer, but also because he wanted Éponine's first opera experience to be memorable. He was quite certain Éponine had never been to the opera before.

Upon returning home, he brandished the tickets to Éponine, who stood slowly from her knees and put down the scrub brush she was using to clean the wooden floors in the parlor.

"The opera?" she gushed. "This is simply glorious! But I've got absolutely nothing to wear..." She seemed to come to this epiphany with a bit of embarrassment, and Javert was embarrassed, too, when he only now realized that he'd never bought her a dress she believed nice enough to wear to the opera.

"Show me your finest dress," Javert insisted. "You will look splendid, I'm sure." He brushed his fingertips against Éponine's hair and smiled gently at her, trying to look reassuring.

Éponine sighed deeply, not smiling in response, and walked over to the armoire. She extracted a midnight blue satin dress, rather ordinary looking if Javert was honest, but new and clean. It had lace trim around the neckline and wrists, and a bit of beaded embroidery, but it was, for the most part, unadorned and uncomplicated. He had to admit that it was an aspiringly bourgeois gown, but, then, Javert had never striven to work his way up to be a bourgeois man.

"Beautiful," was what Javert said, and, smiling, he asked, "and what of your shoes?"

Éponine showed him a plain black satin pair of slippers from the bottom of the armoire.

"Jewelry?"

"The only pieces I own are my wedding ring and the pendant." Éponine looked shyly toward the small porcelain box on the washstand. Inside the box, Javert knew, was a simple gold chain with a small dangling pearl. Javert struggled to smile gently again. He knew that Éponine would not look as fancy as she might like, and he regretted buying opera tickets without asking Éponine first.

"I am quite certain that you will look absolutely lovely," he said, his voice sounding unsure even to his own ear. Éponine pursed her lips and wrung her hands anxiously but nodded.

An hour later, she was dressed properly and was attempting to style her hair into something resembling the current fashion. Javert thought she looked lovely, with her long brunette waves tied up into a bun atop her head, a sapphire ribbon cinched round it, but Éponine fretted at the lack of curls.

"Everyone wears curls," she said. "And, anyway, I feel like a fool, worrying about such trivialities. Perhaps we ought not go..."

"We are going. You will enjoy it," Javert promised, though he himself had only been to the opera thrice in his own lifetime and knew little of the decorum or of the genre itself.

They arrived at the Opéra National in a hired carriage, and stepped out into a world completely unfamiliar and admittedly quite intimidating. Ladies in their Lyonnaise silk finery were escorted by gentlemen in the finest black morning suits. Javert himself felt grossly out of place even in his formal uniform, with white gloves and bicorn hat, for it marked him as a working man, when these others were men of leisure. Javert did not envy them, per se, for he would lose his mind with nothing to do all day, but he was certain the gentlemen judged him as a poseur and one who did not belong at the opera.

For her part, Éponine certainly appeared out of place. She was by far the most plainly adorned woman Javert could see in the audience, and he could tell that being underdressed made her uncomfortable. She held her head high as they took their box, ignoring the titters and stares and pointed fingers from the more elaborately dressed women who asked one another who on earth the ragamuffin woman was. Javert felt a pit in his stomach, one of regret and shame, that he'd thought this a good idea and that he'd not been able to provide well enough for Éponine to even attend an event such as this.

The first act of the show was exciting enough, but the luster of the opera wore off quickly. Neither Javert nor Éponine had been raised on the art, and he could tell she was quite as bored as he was halfway through the second act. In the middle of the third act, Javert glanced over to Éponine to see that she was fast asleep, her head leaning against her hand as she propped it up on the ledge in front of her chair. Javert nudged Éponine to wake her, and she smiled apologetically and directed her eyes to the stage, blinking a few times to focus her tired eyes. Realizing that this was very much a lost cause, Javert leaned over and whispered,

"Let's go home, shall we? As soon as this act is over?"

Éponine did not so much as question the suggestion; she sighed gratefully and nodded. In the carriage on the way home, Éponine snuggled against Javert's chest and murmured,

"I'm sorry I embarrassed you."

"You did no such thing. I'm sorry I put you in such a situation," Javert countered.

"No. It's me who couldn't stay awake, who had nothing to wear, who didn't know how to behave properly." Éponine shook her head sadly and reached her hand suddenly between Javert's thighs. "How can I make it up to you?"

She looked at him playfully and stroked her hand against his trousers, and Javert shoved her hand away a bit too roughly.

"Not in a carriage, Éponine!" he exclaimed, sounding exasperated.

"Why not?" she demanded, brushing her fingertips insistently against the front of his crotch in a way that made him shiver.

"Because," Javert growled, feeling properly ravenous now, "I'd like to take you properly when we get home."

She looked at him with a little glint in her eye, and he knew that he would indeed have her, the moment they stepped foot through the front door. To give her a taste of what was coming, Javert leaned over in the carriage and kissed her, fiercely, plunging his tongue abruptly into Éponine's mouth and delving it around the cavity until she squealed for mercy.

Then he pulled away and looked out the window, grinning fiendishly to himself as Éponine panted behind him, and knew the night had not been such a waste after all.

* * *

Javert ascended each flight of stairs to the flat more quickly than the last, eager to get upstairs and claim his prize. Éponine followed behind him as closely as she could manage in her diaphanous dress, giggling in the late night's quiet. At last Javert reached his own door and fumbled helplessly with the key in the lock, for he was still unfamiliar with it, before Éponine laughed and seized the key from his unwieldy fingers. In her little deft hand, it clicked open quickly, and then the door was shoved open by one or both of them.

Javert leaned down and swept his arm beneath Éponine's knees, placing the other behind her back, and picked her up in a cradle position. She squealed with surprise as her feet left the ground unexpectedly, and she snaked her arms around Javert's neck. He stepped into the flat and kicked the door shut behind him, looking around for a moment in the dim haze of night. He sensed that they were plain little people in a plain little place, but when he looked at Éponine's face beaming up at him, he no longer cared.

He carried her into the bedroom, which felt cramped and cold in the dank October chill. Lying her very gently onto their rather lumpy double bed, he moved to build a fire in the fireplace, completing the task as expeditiously as he could. As he prodded a log to urge the flames to life, he heard Éponine's voice murmur behind him,

"I thought you were the most handsome man at all the opera."

Sighing to himself, Javert thought that it was moments such as this when her childish naivité showed its colors plainly, when it was clear she was not yet jaded.

"You need not feed me flattery, Madame," he replied, turning back to face her. She was reclining on the pillows, her satin dress poufed around her by her petticoats, and her dark eyes smoldered in the glow of the fire.

"I'm quite serious," she asserted. "A man in uniform is difficult to resist, but a Commissaire de Police out of his uniform is impossible to resist."

Javert smiled widely at her jest, his ego sufficiently puffed, and he stalked back to the bedside. He seized Éponine's waist and dragged her to the edge of the mattress, growling, "Get you out of this damnable clothing, woman."

He deftly unbuttoned her midnight blue dress and helped her quickly shuck it, tossing it carelessly onto the floor as neither of them had any love for the garment at the moment. Then off came all four of her petticoats, untied one at a time, and they were tossed around the room like a pieces of a blown dandelion. Next came the stays, and the open drawers, and finally the chemise, and then Éponine was entirely nude, her hair still tied up in the ribbon-cinched bun.

She was kneeling before him on the mattress, her eyes locked on his and her eager breath coming heavily through her nostrils, and Javert thought she looked perfectly angelic - except that he missed her long hair waving about her shoulders. So he reached for the ribbon and pulled on the bow, and Éponine's tresses cascaded down as the bun collapsed. She shook them out gratefully and smiled at Javert, and though they said nothing more of it, he knew they both understood perfectly well how beautiful he thought her hair was just the way she always wore it.

She got to work on him then, her lithe little fingers unfastening one button after another as swiftly as she could down his crisply tailored formal jacket. She pushed it open and off his shoulders, urging him to take it from her. He did, and hung it carefully in the armoire as Éponine waited none too patiently upon the mattress for him. As he walked back to the bed, he unbuttoned his undershirt torturously slowly, taunting her with each inch of his chest that he revealed. By the time he reached her, he was on the last button, and she was mewling for him, reaching her hands out desperately.

He pulled off the undershirt and tossed it aside as Éponine's hands met his torso, her fingers tangling in his chest hair and coursing over his flat stomach. She moaned a little, and Javert thought her amusingly eager tonight, though he was admittedly quite aroused himself. He felt himself growing hard as she touched him, as she squirmed and made little noises. He could not help himself from tipping his head back and sighing contentedly when she unbuttoned his pleated dress trousers and pulled him free, running her palm and fingers over him as if she were examining something brand new and wonderful.

Javert hastily yanked down his pants and stepped out of them, shucking his dress shoes and stockings, and equaled Éponine's lack of clothing at last. When he'd liberated himself from the last thread, he glanced back to the bed to see that Éponine's left hand was coursing over her breast and her right had trailed down between her legs while she knelt. Her eyes met Javert's then, her chestnut gaze burning with desire and excitement.

"I want you so badly," she mumbled, almost incoherently, as she breathed deeply. Her eyes fluttered shut as her fingers found just the right spot, and Javert froze. He suddenly could not move, spellbound and horribly aroused by what he beheld. "Ahh!" Éponine cried, almost collapsing from her kneeling position, as her hand began to move more quickly. Suddenly, Javert did not want her to finish like this. He wanted to be the one to bring her to fruition, to make her scream and moan and writhe. So he lurched forward and seized Éponine's waist, and dragged her to the edge of the bed, pushing her knees open with his own. In one fluid motion, he was inside her, as deeply as he could manage, feeling himself swell upon entering her.

She cried out again, seemingly in immense pleasure, arching her back as if she wanted to draw him in even more deeply. Javert began thrusting roughly, one hand on either side of Éponine's hips so that he could pull her hard against him with each pistoning motion. Her eyes met his and she grinned serenely at him as he drilled her quickly and forcefully, her fingers drifting down between her legs again. Javert caught her hand, seized it, and dragged it away.

"No," he said in a growling voice, panting. "I shall do it."

So he did, clutching harder to her with his left hand while he used his right to play with her clit. She was drenched, and his fingers slid easily around her entrance. He could feel himself sliding in and out of her as his hand moved, and the sensation of feeling their coupling only served to arouse him further. Within a moment, she was trembling fiercely beneath him, and then she fell off of the cliff, clenching hard around his shaft in the random spasms that accompanied her desperate moans and the thrashing of her head.

Watching her have so intense a climax drove Javert straight to his completion, and with a great bellow, he spilled himself into her, feeling his head rush and his ears ring. His entire body tingled and his cock pulsed with the pleasure of the moment, and he shuddered as he pulled out of her entrance.

Minutes later, as she pulled herself against his chest, she murmured,

"You've finished inside me many times now."

"Indeed I have. I am your husband," Javert reminded her, a little confused by her words.

"And still I am not with child," Éponine noted. She glanced up at him and looked a bit worried. "Does this concern or anger you?"

Javert narrowed his eyes, wondering why she felt such an obligation over the matter. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head and said quietly, "It in no way distresses me. I have gone fifty-two years without offspring, Éponine. I am a very patient man. I can wait as long as it takes, if it happens at all."

Éponine bit her lip and nodded. "I am due to bleed in two days," she said. "I suppose then we shall know whether or not..."

She trailed off, and Javert kissed her head again.

"I am not holding my breath," he assured her. "No matter what happens, your very presence makes my life worth living."

The next six weeks passed with little great fanfare, aside from the fact that the people of Lyon were growing ever more restless. On the twenty-sixth of October, the state prefect, Louis Bouvier-Dumolart, was finally able to negotiate a fixed price on silk goods, granting power to a labor court to apply the rate. Despite the negotiations, 104 of the silk manufacturers in Lyon refused to apply the new rate, believing the intervention of the state in the matter to be a sign of tyranny.

On November 10, the conditions in Lyon were worsened by the fact that the manufacturers rejected the demands of the canuts, the silk workers, for higher salaries. This denial made the canuts angry and restless, and Javert could sense with unease the discontent in the Croix-Russe.

Then, on November 21, everything fell to pieces. Javert was patrolling Croix-Russe upon the back of a horse that belonged to the Lyonnaise police department, a chestnut mare. Suddenly, he saw a large gang turn a corner, roving through the streets with what appeared to be clubs. Javert looked to his right and saw three National Guardsmen, and said quietly to them,

"At the ready, gentlemen." The men looked alive, and Javert called out the the crowd, "Halt! What is your business here?"

A man at the front of the pack carried the anarchistic black flag, and one of his compatriots said snidely to Javert,

"We are weavers. The rest of the weavers will join us or die. Lyon is ours! Death to tyrants!"

Upon his final proclamation, he thrust a fist in the air and was joined in a rabid shout by the crowd behind him. Javert realized that he was greatly outnumbered as men poured out of houses and shops in the streets and began melding into the crowd.

So, he thought bleakly to himself, this is the explosion for which we have all been waiting.

Javert pulled the horse aside and let the crowd pass, for initiating a battle here in the street with a crowd of this size would result only in his death and the deaths of the few National Guardsmen present. Javert worried about their loyalty, as well, for the Guardsmen in this area were mostly recruited canuts and could become turncoats at any moment.

Javert rode immediately to the Hôtel de Ville, racing through the streets and alleys to the echoing sounds of shouting crowds. He burst in the front door and demanded to see the police prefect. The terrified-looking clerk gestured for him to go back to the office, and Javert traipsed as quickly as he could, knowing full well he was tracking mud and rain water through across the fine marble floor of the building.

"Monsieur le Prefet!" Javert threw open the door of the prefect's office. "Forgive the interruption, Monsieur."

The prefect looked up from the paper upon which he was writing, looking quite alarmed. He stood quickly, and all he asked was, "Where are they?"

"The weavers were going through the Croix-Russe not an hour ago, Monsieur le Prefet," said Javert breathlessly. "Perhaps four or five hundred of them, though the crowd was swelling quickly. They carried the black anarchist flag."

The prefect's face was calm but grave. He nodded. "Right. Commissaire Javert, you will go immediately to Bon-Pasteur. I will send you fifty men. Fortify the police barracks there and protect the arsenal. A unit of military and national guard will be dispatched to the area. Bon-Pasteur will be under your command."

"Yes, Monsieur," Javert bowed, not having the time to feel grateful or exhilarated at the prospect of such a responsibility. He turned to go, feeling that he ought to get to Bon-Pasteur without any further delay.

"Commissaire..."

Javert turned to look quickly back at the prefect, who said very seriously to Javert,

"It has all boiled down to this moment, Javert. In Lyon's hour of need, I know you will serve us well."

Javert bowed low and nodded. "Of course, Monsieur le Prefet. Long live the King."

* * *

Javert did not think he had time to go home before heading to Bon-Pasteur, so there was no way for him to notify Éponine of what was happening, no way for him to ensure that she was all right or that she was still safe.

At the police barracks and arsenal at Bon-Pasteur, dozens of police officers rallied to protect the stash of weaponry and the barracks themselves from the crowds they knew full well would come. Javert admitted to himself, though not the men under his command, that he felt immense trepidation at the notion of a surging, angry crowd of canuts overtaking the arsenal. Was he to die here, in the streets of Lyon, without saying goodbye to Éponine?

He steeled himself and reminded himself that to do so would be to die in the line of duty, that she would receive a handsome pension from Paris, and that they she would find a younger, more suitable man to marry once he was gone. That thought depressed him so much that he tried distracting himself from the idea, and instead focused on hammering wooden planks across the windows of the barracks.

When the barracks were at last fortified to the best of the ability of the policemen, the National Guard and Infantry began arriving. The Guard, in particular, did not seem especially enthusiastic about fighting, for they themselves had been canuts and there were grumblings among them about firing on their fellow silk workers.

So Javert skirted around the National Guard uncertainly, deciding that they were not to be trusted and certainly not relied upon in the heat of battle. The infantry regulars, on the other hand, were not even from Lyon, and that was why they were somewhat disinterested. Many of their officers were bourgeois young men from Paris or small provincial cities and they had no vested interest in saving the second largest city in their own country, apparently. That angered Javert, for he longed to make them see that this was a situation on the brink, that as went Lyon, so could go Paris, and as went Paris, so would go France.

All afternoon and night they waited in nervous quiet for the crowd they knew was coming to arrive. The National Guard and Infantry became restless, with the latter saying they knew there was action in the city and they wanted to find it. Finally, Javert gathered all the officers of the Guard and Infantry in a room in the barracks for a discussion.

"Men," he began, acknowledging them all with a curt nod. "I know our task here seems tepid compared to the prospect of open conflict in the city. I assure you, open conflict is coming. When the mob arrives here, it will be with bullets on their minds, for their hearts will be set on our arsenal. If they succeed in obtaining the weapons we house here, the city is undoubtedly lost. We must not allow such a fearsome outcome to pass, if for no better reason than the bystanders of this city. These men are drunk with the power of their numbers, and they are untrained with weaponry. Many will be injured or killed, I am certain, by stray bullets if we fail in our task. Stray bullets aside, there are those that are aimed, and they will be aimed at us, brothers. Save your own lives, I beg you, and dedicate yourselves fully to the matter at hand. Protect this arsenal as if it were your own personal treasure, for, at the moment, that is truly what it has become. Long live the king."

Javert was not sure what he expected in response - applause, nods, a shout of 'huzzah', perhaps? What he got were ten blank stares, and in that instant Javert realized the arsenal would fall when the mob arrived. Wordlessly, he turned and strode from the room to fetch a police messenger.

"Find Monsieur le Prefet," Javert told the messenger. "Inform him that the situation at Bon-Pasteur will be quite hopeless once the canuts get here. Tell him to prepare for a battle in which the canuts are well-armed."

Midday on November 22, Javert was huddled on a corner outside the police barracks, watching, when he saw a lone figure jogging down the empty street. It was a young woman, in a dark, simple dress, and she looked alarmed.

Éponine.

Rather than shout out to her and alert everyone to her presence, Javert, his heart racing, stepped out into the street and whistled quietly. She spotted him and darted quickly over to him. Javert grasped her shoulders and guided her briskly into an alley,

"Éponine," he hissed angrily, "what on Earth are you doing here?"

"I found the Prefect and asked him where you were," Éponine informed him. "You haven't been home in nearly 36 hours, you know. I've made bandages and procured opium. I've got needles and thread. I'm ready to help once men are injured."

"Don't you know that this place will be completely overrun once the canuts arrive?" Javert was frantic. "You will be killed alongside me! Go home this instant! Go home and barricade the door and hide. Do not leave the flat. You will be safe there."

But Éponine steeled her face and shook her head resolutely. "I will not," she said. "If you are to perish here, then I am to perish at your side. We will never be apart, you and I, and that's just the way of it."

"Éponine, think of the madness you are speaking," Javert shook his head and gulped, looking over his shoulder nervously. He gripped her shoulders more tightly. "I am thirty-five years your senior; there will come a time when you and I will be apart. There simply will come a time."

"Well, perhaps there may, then, many years from now," Éponine admitted, shrugging, "but it is not today, and it is not tomorrow, and it is not this year. So, where shall I set up my nursing station?"

Knowing full well that even if he tried to physically force her to leave, she would not, Javert escorted her into the barracks and introduced her to the men as his wife - mostly so they would keep their hands off of her. She set up her station in a room with bunks, so that she'd have patient beds, and she took her supplies out of her large drawstring bag and laid them upon a little table. She had small glass bottles of opium and strips of muslin she had cut into various lengths and widths, and about ten needles and good lengths of thread.

Just as Éponine was finishing arranging her pieces, Javert heard the clatter of something breaking outside, as if a roof tile had fallen onto the cobblestones, and then he heard the same sound about ten more times. Rushing outside, he saw a gathering crowd, each one with an armload of roof tiles and stones, hucking their wares at the Guardsmen and Infantry outside the barracks.

"Let us through and this will be easier!" shouted the man carrying the black flag at the front of the crowd. A man beside him threw a roof tile directly at Javert's head as if for emphasis. Javert dodged the tile and it smashed roughly against the barracks behind him, brashly smashing into a dozen pieces.

"Turn around," Javert insisted firmly to the crowd. "This is police property and those who intrude will be treated with all the harshness of the law."

The man with the flag laughed. "We'll see about that. Canuts!" He raised the flag in the air and waved it triumphantly, urging his compatriots to throw their ammunition, a hail of tiles rushing toward the Guardsmen, Infantry, and police, who shielded their faces and heads with their hands.

As he covered his face, Javert heard a shot, and glanced between his arms to see that an Infantryman had fired over the crowd.

Oh, very well done, Javert thought ruefully, and, indeed, the crowd surged forward in anger upon the shot being fired, though it appeared no one had been hit.

Javert suddenly noticed that a few of the Guardsmen were running over to join the canuts, holding fists in the air with their brethren and yelling in triumph with them. Sighing to himself, having known this would happen, Javert retreated back into the barracks and shouted down the hallway,

"Éponine! Go out the back and run as fast as you can!"

She was at his side in an instant. "I am here to treat the wounded," she reminded him.

"These men will rape you before they kill you," Javert told her ominously, looking into her wide brown eyes. "Do you want that again?"

She looked frightened for the first time then, and though she shook her head no, she whispered, "I'm staying with you."

"If ever you loved me, Éponine, for the love of God, please go home," Javert pleaded, as the door beside them began thudding. The crowd was pressing against it from the outside, trying to break into the barracks to gain access to the arsenal. Javert knew that in a moment, they would be inside. "This is your last chance. Go out the back door," he urged quickly.

"No! I will not go without you!" Éponine cried, glancing nervously to the door where the crowd was pounding to gain entry. She began trembling in fear, and, in desperation, Javert snatched her wrists and dragged her down the hallway. She began to sob, undoubtedly thinking that this was the final time she'd see him, and followed him reluctantly.

She was too slow, so Javert reached quickly behind himself and hauled her up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and began running. He reached the back door just as he heard the side door burst open and the crowd come pouring into the barracks. Then, he knew, it was lost. There were not enough men here to defend the arsenal, and to stay would be suicide.

"Retreat!" he shouted, to all the Guardsmen who remained on the side of the government and to the Infantrymen in earshot. His voice shook with anger as he called out again, "Retreat to the outskirts of the city!"

He dashed down the alley behind the barracks, Éponine still folded over his shoulder, and glanced over his shoulder to see that the crowd had completely overrun the barracks and was rushing into the arsenal. Javert knew that in minutes, the mob would be completely armed and ready for a deadly battle. The city would be lost in hours. Overwhelmed with the shame of having failed at his post, Javert put Éponine on the ground, and together they ran until they reached their little flat.

Javert's predictions about the city falling proved true. Within twelve hours, the city belonged to the canuts. They won a bloody battle in which six hundred total casualties fell, using the weapons they seized at the arsenal Javert was supposed to protect. Word came that the mayor and a top military leader had fled the city in the middle of the night, and though there were fears of looting, no major such activity took place.

At midnight, exhausted from being awake for two solid days, Javert paced anxiously around the parlor of the flat. Suddenly, there was a firm knock upon Javert's door.

"Commissaire Javert? A message from The Prefect."

Éponine looked worried, but Javert just nodded reassuringly at her and opened the door a crack. A teenaged boy handed Javert a letter and dashed down the stairs again without a word.

Javert opened the letter by the light of a single candle, feeling quite cold indeed in the flat but unwilling and too anxious to build a full fire. He began reading with a degree of fear and worry.

"Commissaire Javert,

Please rest assured that the outcome at the barracks and arsenal lie not on your shoulders. There is no one who could have held the location given the questionable loyalties of the soldiers charged with guarding it, and the size and determination of the mob. My faith in you is not shaken in the least.

The mayor is gone. That rumor is quite true, I am afraid. Until we receive further backup from Paris and word of instruction, you are to stay at home and await orders. There is nothing we can do now that the city has fallen so completely. Never since the Revolution has there been so complete a collapse of power in a city in so short a time. Orders will come as soon as they are available. Get rest and be ready. Be vigilant."

Éponine stepped up behind Javert and snaked her hands around his neck.

"What does it say?" she asked him softly, planting a gentle kiss upon his hair.

"It says the city is lost. It says there is nothing to be done. It says to wait."

He folded the letter and tipped his head back, sighing sadly. Éponine touched her lips to his and murmured,

"Then we shall wait."


	6. Chapter 6

The canuts may have seized the city, but their grasp on power was tenuous at best and completely unorganized at worst.

They set up a committee, and the committee was to rule the city, but its members were far from politicians and had precisely no idea how to govern Lyon in the absence of its legitimate authorities. For days, Javert wallowed in his flat, like the rest of the city, only venturing out in street clothes when he needed food.

On November 24th, Javert sat in the parlor staring at the fireplace, wishing he had wood with which to build a fire. He examined the bricks at the back of the fireplace, studying the black pattern the smoke had left behind. He was thinking, as he'd been since he'd come home, about his abysmal failure.

How could he have done better? What could he have done to keep the mob at bay? Perhaps the Prefect was right, he consoled himself. Perhaps no man would have been able to stave off the crowd given the men with which Javert was charged and the overwhelming odds he faced. And, yet, the news of six hundred total casualties in the ensuing battle in Lyon hit Javert quite hard indeed. How could he not take responsibility for the deaths? The bullets fired had come from Bon-Pasteur, and from there Javert had run like a cornered animal. He was deeply ashamed, and very depressed, over the entire affair.

He started a bit when he heard the door behind him open and shut, though it was done so very quietly and surreptitiously.

"My love?" Éponine prompted, her voice timid. She had been treading upon eggshells around Javert for two days, seemingly terrified to set him off in his state of humiliation and regret.

"Hmm." Javert's voice came out as a sigh. He meshed his hands behind his back and continued looking at the empty, cold fireplace, illuminated only by the light coming through the fourth-floor window. Then he felt Éponine's hands on his shoulders, massaging gently as she reached up to touch him carefully through the fabric of his unbleached cotton shirt. He sighed again, for her touch was the only pleasant thing he had felt in days, and he desperately needed to get out of the rut of self-pity into which he seemed to have so unceremoniously plunged.

"Will you sit and talk with me?" Éponine asked, taking his hand and pulling him to the divan in front of the fire. She urged him to sit, and when he did, she curled up beside him, letting her dark brown calico skirts billow about her. She nuzzled her head into his shoulder, and they both stared into the empty fireplace, both pretending there was a warm fire burning inside it. Javert reached for the heavy wool point blanket beside the divan, the one he'd had for many years, and cast it over himself and Éponine for warmth.

"Where did you get this blanket?" Éponine asked."I've not seen another like it." She flipped over the corner nearest her and struggled to read the English-language label. "Hudson Bay Company."

"They are traded to Canada," Javert said, "and I obtained mine when I was serving in Napoleon's army. We received them when I was in Russia; a division that had intercepted British naval supplies got a ship full of the blankets given to them and divided them among soldiers of the Grande Armée. So, I have had this wool blanket since 1812."

He looked down at it, its red wool and brown thick stripe bringing back many memories of the disastrous invasion of Russia. Javert recalled the bitter retreat which had spelled doom for Napoleon's power in Europe. He recalled that less that ten percent of the soldiers of the Grande Armée escaped the Russian invasion fit, and Javert had been fortunate enough to be one of them. To this day, he could feel the cold in his fingers and toes, could hear the moans of the ill and dying, could see the blood on the battlefields.

"I was not even born in 1812. I was born in December of 1813," Éponine reminded him, jarring him from his memories, and Javert nodded. He was well aware of their age difference, and did not need reminding. "If you are fifty-two," Éponine continued relentlessly, "that means that you were born in 1779. Is that correct?"

"So it is. June of that year." Javert nodded again, hesitant to say anything more about the matter. She knew he was of humble origins, but she knew few details.

"Tell me about your childhood," Éponine said then, and Javert felt like he'd been kicked in the gut.

"I'd really much prefer not to do so," he said, shaking his head and sniffing.

"Please," Éponine begged. "I need to know who you are."

"I am not that boy, I shall tell you that much," Javert insisted, now feeling very defensive. He truly did not wish to expound upon the matter any further, and he felt his ears growing warm with embarrassment and frustration. He pulled Éponine more tightly against him and kissed the top of her head, hoping to distract her from her train of thought. But then she looked up at him with her plaintive brown eyes, wordlessly begging him for information, and Javert pursed his lips.

He cleared his throat and thought where to begin.

"I was born inside of a prison in Marseilles to a Gypsy. She'd been arrested for fortune-telling, and they did not especially care that she was pregnant. Because she was a Gypsy, they kept her locked up for three years after my birth, with me entombed in the jail beside her. All I was ever able to discover of my father was that he was a galley worker, a convict. By the time I was six years old, I left my mother forever and lived alone on the streets of Marseilles."

"Oh," Éponine said, and though perhaps the idea of Javert as a street urchin surprised her, she did not act as though it disgusted or even truly saddened her. She looked up at Javert again, wide-eyed, urging him to continue.

"When I was ten years old, the Revolution began," Javert said. "Even in Marseilles, there were public executions. There were new laws. To some of them I paid little heed, being a child, but others I noticed. No religion, certain words were banned... The clocks and calendars were different! That, we all thought, was odd and ridiculous, though of course we did not dare say so. As a young man, I worked on the docks in Marseilles. Then, Napoleon came to power and I joined the army in 1804. I served periodically, as needed, until 1812, working as a prison guard in Toulon in the interim."

"What made you leave Marseilles?" Éponine asked, and Javert sighed as he pondered the question. He'd not considered the thought himself for many years.

"I've been a nomad of sorts my entire life," he said, "quite unattached to anything, anywhere, or anyone, except my devotion to the law. And, now, to you."

He leaned down to kiss her as she looked up at him, his lips compressing gently against hers in a soft, chaste peck. Not at all content with that, Éponine caught his mouth before he was able to raise his head, her hands pressing urgently upon his beard. She pulled him back down and snuck her tongue between his lips, and at the sensation, Javert moaned a bit into her mouth. He kissed her back, his hands tangling in her auburn waves, pulling her face ever nearer to his and crushing her mouth.

"I do not care where you were born," Éponine whispered breathlessly when their lips parted for the briefest of moments. After another kiss, she corrected herself, "I mean to say... I care, I just... I do not mind -"

Javert cut her off, quite tired of the subject, and plunged his tongue into her mouth, exploring so vigorously that she squealed. Then he pulled his tongue out and moved it to her neck, licking and nipping and suckling there relentlessly until Éponine was squirming and moaning on the divan, desperate for Javert to touch her somewhere other than her hair.

Overtaken with the desire to watch her as she erupted in pleasure, Javert lowered himself from the divan and knelt before Éponine. He began hiking her calico dress and petticoats up until they were above her knees. He was abruptly grateful that she wore open drawers.

"What are you doing?" Éponine asked with a gasp.

"I should think that rather obvious," Javert said with a small, wry smile, as he brushed his fingertips along the insides of her thighs. She gasped again, and gripped the upholstered cushions, and panted through gritted teeth. "Shall I stop?" he asked playfully, and Éponine shook her head vehemently.

So he let his fingers trail all the way up her thighs until they reached the apex, and there he slid them against her moist entrance, eliciting from her a low groan. She nodded then, and whispered,

"More."

Javert planted little kisses all the way up the inside of her thigh, dragging his dull fingernails up the outside, and buried his head underneath her skirts. He felt her longer nails raking anxiously through the hair on the back of his head, holding on for dear life. He kissed her folds and felt her shiver, heard her cry out as if in alarm, and he did it again and again until she was so wet his lips were dripping with her essence.

Then he enveloped her in his mouth, and was abruptly aware of her metallic tang in his mouth, which made him instantly hard in his trousers. He grasped the outside of her hip with his left and and brought his right to her entrance. There, he inserted two fingers into her and hooked them to find just the right spot, while he used his tongue to please her clitoris with languorous licks and gentle sucking. Feeling especially daring, and egged on by her constant moans and panting, Javert decided to use his tongue to trace letters on her, and he spelled out his own name as if he were marking her as his territory. The variation in his movements as he spelled each letter seemed to drive her wild, and she shrieked loudly as she suddenly clenched hard around his fingers. A rush of moisture accompanied her spasms, and Javert relished the fresh taste of her. When she had come down from her high, Javert rose from his knees, feeling young despite the creak in his joints. He put Éponine's skirts to rights and cleared his throat, rather pleased with himself.

He was more aroused than he'd been in quite some time, and he wanted nothing more than to open his trousers and pound Éponine relentlessly, but she motioned for him to stay standing in front of the divan. Javert watched as she unbuttoned his trousers with hands still shaking from her orgasm. She licked her lips, looking very hungry indeed, and her pupils were dilated with desire as she glanced up to meet his eyes amorously. She pulled his erection out and stroked it a few times, pulling a low moan from somewhere deep in Javert's chest.

Then she leaned forward from where she sat and wrapped her lips slowly around his tip, so slowly that Javert wanted to yelp in frustration. Soon enough, warm wetness enveloped him, and she was plunging him into her mouth. Once he was slicked with her saliva, she slid her hand up and around his tip and down the shaft each time she dipped her head. Her left hand reached up to lace fingers with his, and he gripped her hand gratefully. He squeezed that hand a bit too tightly when she took his entire length and he felt the back of her throat against his tip.

"Ungh... Éponine..." He moaned her name over and again in a hoarse whisper as she pleasured him, his head lolling aimlessly and his back arching. He could feel himself climbing a cliff over which he knew he would tumble, and when he felt himself reach the top, he tried to pull Éponine's head off of his member. "I'm going to -"

"Good," she said breathlessly, pulling him back into her mouth. Javert watched in wonderment as she kept him there while he came. He could feel his seed pulsing into her mouth, could feel her gulping it down as if it were milk and honey. He felt the familiar rush of glorious pleasure throughout every inch of his skin and heard ringing in his ears, and it was a very long moment before he finished tumbling.

He sat beside her once he'd buttoned his trousers, amazed that she had swallowed him, amazed that he had used his mouth on her. He pulled Éponine tightly against his chest and kissed her head gently, flabbergasted in general that a man such as himself had managed to squirm his way into a marriage such as this.

They sat in silence for many minutes, simply enjoying the other's company, until Javert was jarred out of his reverie by an insistent knock upon the door.

"Your orders, Commissaire!" Javert recognized the voice as the young man who had brought him the Prefect's letter two days earlier. He hurried to the door and opened it, nodding his thanks at the young man and shut the door behind him.

He read his orders, and his eyes went wide in surprise.

"What is it? What are you to do?" Éponine asked anxiously, rising from the divan.

"The Duke of Orléans and Marshal Nicholas Soult will be arriving in Trévoux, outside the city, in four days' time. They will have 20,000 men under their command. I am to meet them in Trévoux and wait for the city to be retaken, after which I am to present news of the outcome to the Prefect in Paris."

Éponine looked confused. "Lyon is under the control of the canuts," she reminded him, as if he did not know. "How are we to be in Trévoux in four days?"

Javert sighed deeply and stared out the window, beyond the farthest hill he could see.

"We shall have to escape on foot," he said. "We shall have to sneak out of the city."

* * *

Javert and Éponine packed only the very few things they felt they could not leave behind, such as her pearl pendant, two of her calico dresses, one set of Javert's dress uniform (which terrified him to bring, but was necessary), and his point wool blanket. They packed these things into bags and satchels and dressed in their absolute plainest clothes. For Javert, this meant dark brown linen wool pants, an unbleached linen shirt, a brown wool vest, and a brown untailored waistcoat. Éponine wore her plain brown calico dress with only one petticoat beneath it. It was cut very simply, with no puff to the sleeves and very little decoration around the cuffs and neckline. She tied her hair in a style that was anything but elaborate, a basic chignon at the back of her head with a plain brown wool bonnet for modesty and warmth.

They wanted to look simple, but not poor, for they would be posing as farm owners in case they were caught.

"Where is our farm?" Javert drilled Éponine, as he cinched a bag and tossed it over his shoulder. She nodded resolutely and replied,

"Ten miles northeast of Reyreux."

"And why were we in Lyon? Where is our cart?" Javert demanded, as if he were a canut at a checkpoint.

"We were here trading equipment when the troubles broke out. Our cart was used for a barricade."

"Very good," Javert nodded, pleased with how well she was remembering their story. Then, he posed her a question they had not yet practiced. He narrowed his eyes and demanded, "Why do you not speak in the Arpitan dialect?"

Éponine answered instantly and confidently. "I am from the north, my husband from the south. We met in Paris and married, and moved here, to the southeast, for the fertile land and to be closer to his family."

Javert gave Éponine a wide smile. He was proud of her. She would do just fine.

They left their little flat with a twinge of melancholy. They'd spent but a few weeks there, but those few weeks had been some in which they had rekindled the intimacy they'd lost in the months prior to coming to Lyon. In many ways, they had rediscovered one another here in this modest little apartment.

They walked casually through the streets of the Croix-Russe - as casually as they could walk given the fact that the city was occupied - and headed north. They were about the cross the river when they were stopped at a bridge by a roadblock of canuts. They were instantly recognizable by the black armbands they wore and by their silk workers' clothes.

A gentle mist was falling, which Javert would not have minded but for the cold, and it was beginning to soak through Éponine's woolen cape. Beside him, she shivered as they approached the canuts.

"Good health to you!" Javert called to the tallest canut, holding out his hand in greeting.

"None may cross the bridge," the man said in return, his face stern and his eyes narrowed. Javert nodded his comprehension and dropped his hand, sighing quietly.

"I understand your desire to keep the city closed," Javert said, trying desperately to sound reasonable despite his anger, "but my wife and I are not Lyonnais, and we want only to go home to our farm northeast of Reyreux."

The canut shifted on his feet and touched the hilt of a dagger at his side. He looked as though he were considering the idea for a moment, and then shook his head again. "No," he said. "None may leave the city."

Javert nodded again and backed slowly away from the canut, taking Éponine's hand and turning around wordlessly.

"If you are seen trying to leave, you will be shot," the canut called after Javert, and Javert said nothing, only nodded calmly and continued walking. Once they were well away from the bridge, Éponine hissed at him,

"Well, Monsieur le Commissaire, what is your grand plan now?"

Javert squeezed her hand gently and murmured, "We wait until nightfall. Then we run as quickly as we can along the banks of the Saône, along the quai, until we are out of the city. We do not stop running until we are past Sathonay-Camp, beyond the control of the canuts."

They sat for a time together in the rain in a park near the river, watching the occasional passer-by with curiosity. What were they all doing out of their homes? Were they planning escape, as well? Javert sat on a bench beneath a large oak and let Éponine huddle against him for warmth, what little he could provide. After a while, Javert looked around to ensure that no one was near or listening, and he mumbled to Éponine,

"When I say 'run,' you must follow me without question. You must not stop until I tell you we may stop. If you need to drop your bundle, do, but whatever you do, never stop running. Stay out of the light. Stay in the shadows. Do you understand?"

Éponine nodded against his shoulder, and Javert looked down to see that she had chewed a sore onto her lip, which was bleeding. She was clearly anxious, though none of that anxiety was outwardly evident besides the lip.

At last, it was night, and as darkness fell, Javert gulped and looked straight ahead of him into the murky and churning waters of the Saône. The path that ran beside the banks was muddy and slick, but at least it coursed through the shadows. There was no time to waste. The time was now. Javert looked down beside him and saw that Éponine had fallen asleep against his shoulder, shivering in the mist. He nudged her awake and whispered,

"Let's go."

Within a moment, they were dashing from the park green down the hill toward the river. Éponine untied her bonnet as she ran, ostensibly so that she could see more easily, and let it flutter to the ground. They reached the quay and ran, jogging down the muddy path, their feet sliding in the muck. Javert reached back for Éponine's hand when she nearly tumbled to the ground, holding fast to her as they ran.

He was running for her, certainly, for their lives, but he was also running for duty. He was to meet the Duke of Orléans outside the city; he was to take news to the Prefect in Paris. He could do none of that if he was shot dead by a few renegade canuts. So Javert ran for all he was worth, pumping his legs and dragging Éponine behind him as if she were a resistant child. The only sounds that resonated in Javert's ears were the squelching of his feet in the mud, Éponine's panting breath behind him, and the pounding of his own heart. They ran like that, in relative silence, for a mile and a half, until Javert's chest burned and his legs ached. He was practically towing Éponine through the mud, so exhausted was she from the exertion of sprinting hard in the muck.

Then, abruptly, Javert heard a voice call out,

"You there! Stop!"

But Javert did not so much as look back to see where the voice had originated. Frantic, he pushed himself to run even harder, for a hundred yards ahead was the Pont de Collonges, a large stone bridge crossing the Saône. Javert dashed as fast as he could into the shadows and disappeared into darkness, just as a shot rang out from above and behind them. Éponine yelped very quietly, alarmed by the shot, and darted to Javert's side. They sprinted under the nearest arch of the bridge and pressed themselves against the slimy stone wall.

Then Javert heard the sound of men running in the mud, distantly, and he knew that they had been followed.

"Come," he whispered to Éponine, and, without warning, pulled her by the hand a bit upriver and crept as quietly as possible into the water. Both he and Éponine gasped when their skin touched the icy waters of the Saône; it was nearly December and the river was freezing. Both knew, though, that they had little in the way of choice at the moment, and so they waded out until they reached a point where Éponine could barely stand. Luckily, the Saône flowed very gently at this wide point of its length, almost where it dumped into the Rhône, and there was little by way of current to pull them along.

Javert pulled his bundles under the water, and Éponine did the same. Just as the canuts who had followed them seemed to be getting very close, Javert looked at Éponine and nodded. They each took a massive breath, and then submerged themselves underwater and waited.

It was the longest wait Javert had ever endured.

The water was frigid, encasing him in an icy, pitch-black hell that stabbed violently at his muscles. Javert reached out in the water as his lungs began to burn and gripped Éponine's hand, making sure that she was still beside him. He gave her hand a little squeeze, and felt a weak squeeze in response.

He wanted so badly to rise to the surface, but he could not be sure the canuts were gone, so he waited... and waited... and waited, until his lungs felt as though they would positively explode out of his chest and his head felt woozy and heavy. He squeezed Éponine's hand again, and this time she did not squeeze back. Abruptly panicking, Javert squeezed again. Nothing.

He rose his head to the surface and breathed as quietly as he possibly could in the darkness, feeling numbness spread over his skin from the icy water. He looked carefully around and saw no one. They had to have been under the water for at least three solid minutes. Gasping desperately for air, Javert pulled Éponine from the water beside him and squinted in the darkness.

"Éponine," he hissed, shaking violently from the cold. Her head lolled to the side and she did not stand on her own, much less answer. "No, God... please, no," Javert moaned quietly, dragging Éponine to the shore, leaving all the bundles except his uniform under the depths of the icy black river. They reached the muddy bank and Javert collapsed there, debilitated from the cold and distraught over Éponine's lifeless form.

He lay her on her back and began pressing desperately on her chest, trying to stay quiet.

"Please," he murmured into the night, peeling off his shirt so that the freezing, wet fabric was no longer touching his skin, "Please breathe."

As if she had heard him, she suddenly regurgitated a lungful of water, coughing several times. She was instantly brought back to life, her breath rickety and trembling and shallow, but present. Overcome with relief, Javert felt tears tumble forth from his eyes, and he bent over at the waist in gratitude. He was now covered in mud; he knelt in it and now put his hands directly into the muck as he thanked God for the first time in years. Éponine continued to cough, and Javert leaned down to kiss her shivering forehead. He reached around her and scooped her muddy, quivering form from the ground, cradling her in his arms and tossing the bundle with his uniform and money over his shoulder.

It was a mile to Sathonay-Camp, where they would be able to get a room in an inn and recuperate for the rest of the night. The canuts did not control that far outside the city center, and if Javert could manage to carry Éponine to Sathonay-Camp, they would have escaped with their lives.

But only just.

Javert stuck as close to the river as he could, cradling Éponine's violently shaking form against his own bare, cold chest. The night seemed to grow colder as it wore on, and when at last Javert saw the glowing lights of an inn on the Chemin de Vetter, he felt as though he could hardly make it to their doorstep.

He pounded insistently on the front door, and within a moment the innkeeper's elderly wife answered the door.

"Good Lord!" she exclaimed, seeing the shirtless Javert holding the panting, shivering, muddy Éponine.

"Madame, I am a Commissaire de Police. This is my wife. We have just escaped Lyon. If you will please provide us lodging -" Javert began, but the innkeeper's wife cut him off.

"A Commissaire de Police?"

At first, Javert thought from her reaction that she would turn them away because of his profession, but then she said with a wry grin,

"Then of course your room and board are on the house, Monsieur. Come upstairs and I will bring you food and a bath."

The woman was as good as her word. Forty-five minutes later, Éponine was sitting in the little wooden washtub, still shivering despite the warm water, and Javert was washing mud from himself using a basin and pitcher. They each scrubbed furiously, silently, and then there was a gentle knock on the door.

"Monsieur, there are clean clothes here for your wife," the innkeeper's wife called through the door.

"Thank you very kindly, Madame. I shall compensate you in the morning," Javert promised.

"No need."

Her creaking footsteps disappeared down the stairs, and Éponine whispered to Javert, "We were nearly caught."

"Indeed we were," Javert nodded, noting to himself the irony that, for years, he had chased fugitives, and now he himself felt very much like one.

Éponine stepped out of the bath and dried herself off with linen towels. She wrapped one around herself and very surreptitiously opened the door, snatching the pile of clean clothes from the corridor. There was a simple maroon wool dress that looked as though it would be too wide and too short on Éponine, but would have to do. There was a diaphanous nightgown and a basic chemise.

Javert's uniform had been rinsed and was hanging to dry. He would wear it in the morning. For now, he climbed naked into bed and waited for Éponine to join him. There was nothing he wanted more desperately than sleep, nothing he thought he had more thoroughly earned. Éponine climbed in beside him in her borrowed nightgown and tucked her head into his shoulder. She pressed her palm on his chest and erupted into tears.

Javert was initially confused by the sudden meltdown, but he just kissed her head and whispered, "I was frightened, too. Very genuinely frightened."

He petted her hair and realized it was so, that he had been absolutely terrified he had lost her, that his relief upon seeing her breathe was so great that he could hardly catch his own breath. Éponine continued to sob into Javert's chest, so he sighed deeply, relishing the feeling of air in his lungs, and kissed Her hair again. He murmured gently,

"You are never, ever allowed to leave me, Éponine. Please, please... never leave me."

* * *

Javert awoke before dawn, covered in a cold sweat and panting. He'd just dreamed that they were back at the river, that he was pressing desperately upon Éponine's chest, and that she would not breathe. In Javert's nightmare, Éponine's lips gradually grew more and more blue, her skin colder, until it was clear she was gone.

Now, Javert felt terrified tears worm their way to the surface, and he anxiously pawed the bed next to him, placing his hands upon Éponine's lean back. He felt it rising and falling and sighed in relief, gulping through a dry throat. His hands trembled on her back, shaking furiously from his terror, and after a moment she stirred in her sleep and rolled slowly toward Javert. In the dim light that remained from the fire, he could read the worry written upon her brow and could see the concern glittering in her sleepy eyes.

"What's wrong?" she croaked, her voice sounding as weary as she looked. She rubbed at her eyes like a cranky child and yawned daintily.

"I... had an unpleasant dream, that's all," Javert mumbled, pulling his quaking hands from her. As he drew them away, Éponine grasped at his fingers and pulled them back to her lips. She kissed them delicately and released them.

"I'm here," she whispered. "Here beside you."

"Thank you." It was all Javert could think to say, though as he leaned down to kiss her hair he was reminded of a song he heard once when he was a guard at Toulon. The prisoners had sung it, and so Javert was not like to quote it, but they'd been singing it for sweethearts they knew they would never see again, and it seemed fitting in this instance. He placed his lips beside Éponine's ear and petted her head with his hand as he murmured,

"Oh, my love, the reason for my heartbeat / Oh, my joy, your kisses fed my soul / Before you I was damned / and at your feet I fell / Do not forget me, but think on me well."

Éponine moved her chin so that her mouth lined up with Javert's, and she kissed him very softly indeed, just barely brushing her pillowy lips against his rough ones. Javert had not known her to show such restraint; it was usually Éponine who urged kisses to become passionate, and so he was surprised by her gentleness. Her little hands reached up to cradle Javert's head, one palm flat against his scraggly bearded cheek and the other fingers entrenched in his graying hair. Once more she kissed him, this time sweeping her tongue smoothly and mildly across his bottom lip as if she were licking a very expensive envelope.

Javert shivered at the sensation, feeling a sudden tingling spread from his crown to his toes. He inhaled deeply through his nose, breathing in her scent as he tangled his hands in her auburn waves and pulled her face nearer. He shimmied down closer to her so that they were flush against one another, side by side beneath the blankets. Javert had gone to sleep wearing nothing at all, and so he relished the touch of Éponine's left hand migrating from his hair down his neck to his bare shoulder.

He kissed her again, ever so slightly more aggressively, and peeked his tongue into her mouth. She latched onto it and held fast, sucking on it and drawing it in more deeply, moaning very softly as she did. Javert made an involuntary little grunt as her hand drifted down his spine, her fingertips playing against his vertebrae, and shivered again. Then her hand reached his backside and began kneading gently, pulling his pelvis against her. The hardness that was beginning to form between Javert's thighs prodded at Éponine's abdomen, and she sighed into Javert's mouth gleefully.

He moved his kiss to her neck and worked on her there, hoping to arouse her enough to take her, and it seemed to work just fine. She began to pant with an increasingly frenetic pace as his tongue drove against her skin, his lips and teeth gently dragging across all the sensitive tendons and muscles. His right hand made its way down beneath the blanket and hiked up the skirt of her borrowed nightgown, hoisting it well above her waist. He continued to torture her at her neck while his fingers fiddled with her increasingly wet clit.

Javert had no patience for fooling around any longer. He urged her leg up and hooked it around his waist, holding fast to her hip with one hand and guiding himself into her slick entrance with the other. He rolled onto his back and pulled her up so that she was riding him, grasping her tiny waist in his calloused hands and rhythmically rocking her back and forth.

Éponine's eyes fluttered shut and she tossed her hair over her shoulder, massaging her breasts with her hands and grinding her hips seductively against Javert's.

"Look at me," Javert said in a deep, husky voice, wanting desperately to see her chestnut eyes as she rode him. She obeyed, opening her eyes a bit, lids heavy with desire, her gaze melting away all of Javert's anxiety. Her hands trailed down her torso from her breasts to meet Javert's hands on her waist, and she hooked her fingers with his as her motions on him quickened. She was swaying in a sort of figure-8 motion, bobbing up and down as she did, and it felt positively splendid around Javert's length and tip. Soon she was rocking so hard on him that the inn's little wooden bed creaked in protest, and Javert clenched his teeth and ground them and growled out, "God, Éponine..."

"Yes?" Her voice was sensuous in its breathiness, teasing in tone.

"It feels..." Javert could not find the words. His head was spinning. His body was on fire, and his whole being trembled. "I'm going to..."

"Yes," Éponine whispered, speeding up her motions even further. "Yes. Do it. Spill yourself inside me."

At that, Javert lost control, and he exploded, feeling a rush of relief as his seed burst forth into her and leaked immediately back out. His whole body tensed at the instant of release, and he thrust his hips upward, driving himself into Éponine. He released a tortured noise that was an incoherent mix of Éponine's name and a cry for help. Afterward, he immediately felt light-headed and dizzy and was very glad he was lying down. His heart pounded so hard in his chest he feared it would pump its way right out, and his breath came in ragged, frequent pants. He'd not come so hard or for so long in a very good while, and he relished the sensations coursing through his body.

He did not even notice when Éponine climbed off of him and lay on her back beside him, her chest rising and falling quickly as she caught her own breath.

"Just think," she said with a little chuckle, "if I had died in that river, you would not have just done that."

She looked over at Javert to judge his reaction, and his tightly pressed lips and narrowed eyes did not seem to be what she was expecting.

"I hardly find it amusing," Javert breathed, tucking an arm behind his head. "Once again, I nearly lost you."

"Well, you did not," Éponine reminded him, "and we just celebrated that fact. Now, go back to sleep, and when the sun comes up, we will pay the innkeeper what he is due and be on our way to Trévoux."

She kissed his cheek and, without another word, rolled over and pulled the blankets around herself tightly, and drifted back off to sleep. Exhausted from making love, Javert quickly did the same.

* * *

It was still a two days' walk to Trévoux, so Javert and Éponine began their march as soon as the sun was up. They paid the innkeeper for their room and clothes, politely refusing the offer of complimentary lodging. They took porridge and bacon downstairs, along with warm spiced wine, and then they were on their way.

It was colder than Javert would have thought normal for the time of year in the southeast of France - perhaps just above freezing, and the crisp air made his bones creak as he began striding down the road to Parcieux, where they were aiming to arrive by nightfall. In the one satchel Javert had managed to keep, he had a dagger and coins, and now he wore his (still damp) uniform as a sort of badge of honor. As they walked, Javert spied a large, thick, straight branch by the side of the road and picked it up, figuring it would make not only a satisfactory walking stick but also a decent blunt weapon if needed.

Beside him, Éponine walked in silence, wearing the woolen cloak which the night before had weighed her down in the river. Javert knew that it, too, was still wet, and that her borrowed maroon dress was likely uncomfortable. Nonetheless, Éponine did not complain.

"If we arrive in Parcieux before nightfall, we ought to stop at a dressmaker's," Javert told Éponine. "It won't do to have you presented to His Grace the Duke in a borrowed, dirty, ill-fitting calico dress."

Éponine stopped dead in her tracks and looked at Javert with an expression of wide-eyed horror. At first, Javert thought he'd deeply offended her, but then she said in a meek, quiet voice,

"Presented to the Duke?"

Javert was confused. In all likelihood, Éponine would be at least visible to the Duke of Orléans, since Javert was to personally speak with him regarding affairs in Lyon. He did not wish for her to feel foolish in the presence of royalty.

"I'm certain you will meet him," Javert nodded, as if it were obvious. He continued walking, feeling that there was absolutely no time to waste.

Éponine followed and said nothing, but a few minutes later she asked earnestly, "Do we have sufficient coin for a new dress?"

"I have brought with me all I had in Lyon. I have much more back in Paris. Yes. There is enough for a ready-made, relatively simple dress and a bonnet." Javert was getting irritated. He had not intended on getting Éponine fixated on fashion, and he was unaware that she was as anxious about the prospect of meeting the Duke as she seemed to be. "Even if you do not meet His Grace, there will be many other military officials present, and I wish for you to look presentable," Javert said after a time.

Now he had offended her, and Éponine huffed angrily at his side. "Am I not presentable?" she demanded, and Javert looked askance at her as they briskly walked down the road. She was rather ragged looking, her hair hanging down loose and free in curled tendrils and the neckline of her too-wide dress slipping off of her shoulder. No, she was not presentable.

"I should feel much better for the both of us if you had a new dress," Javert said cautiously, and Éponine huffed again.

They stopped for lunch at a tavern in Neuville-sur-Saône, the quietest one in the commune, and ate as quickly as they could through the stale bread and rancid meat and drank their sour wine with haste. Then they were on their way again, and by mid-afternoon, Javert's feet and ankles were causing him great distress. He was even more troubled by the fact that their route traversed alongside the Saône River, the very same water into which he and Éponine had been forced to plunge themselves only the night before and in which Éponine had nearly lost her life. He never wanted to see that river again, and here he was staring at it all day long.

At last they arrived in the little town of Parcieux, and they found the only dressmaker that vended ready-made clothes. They stepped into the shop and relished the warmth of the dressmaker's fire, the cozy closeness of the entry room. Javert felt distinctly out of place in a women's store such as this, but he was hardly about to send Éponine into a store on her own in a strange town.

"Bonsoir, Mademoiselle, Monsieur..." A plump dressmaker swept out from the back room at the sound of the little brass bell above the door announcing Javert and Éponine's arrival. Javert cringed when the dressmaker called Éponine by an unmarried title, but he assumed she thought them to be father and daughter, an admittedly easy mistake given their substantial difference in age and height.

So he simply said, "Bonsoir. My wife is looking for something you've got made already. We are travelers, just passing through, and her clothing has been ruined. Our budget is thirty francs for a dress, five for a bonnet, and five for shoes."

The dressmaker looked pleased. She smiled gently and said, "Let me see what I may have for the Madame." She disappeared again into the back of the shop, and Éponine hissed from beside Javert,

"Forty francs? You will bankrupt us! Over some stupid audience with a duke!"

Javert shook his head impatiently. Since being promoted to a Commissaire de Police, he made almost twice as much as he had made before, and he could well afford the dress for Éponine. She did not need to be wearing simple calicoes and worn-out shoes.

"The amount is nothing, Éponine," he assured her quietly, just as the dressmaker reappeared. In her arms was a fine-looking gown, and she held it up for Éponine to see.

"Does this please the Madame?" she asked, and Javert saw the glint in Éponine's eye the moment she saw the gown. It was sage green satin, with white alençon lace around the off-the-shoulder neckline and leg of mutton sleeves. Around the waist there was a narrow belt with white satin piping and a pewter clasp. The skirt fell long and full to sweeping gatherings where it had been pulled up and fastened by large green bows to reveal the white lace underskirt.

"Very much," Éponine answered the dressmaker, smiling widely. "May I try it on?"

"But of course! We shall try it with this," the dressmaker told her, holding up a raw silk sage green bonnet with peach silk roses adorning its crown. Éponine looked back at Javert and grinned. He smiled weakly back, wondering absently how much this absurdly fancy clothing must cost. As if she had read his mind, the dressmaker looked at Javert and said quietly, "Thirty for both the dress and the bonnet, Monsieur le Commissaire."

Feeling as though perhaps his uniform had earned him a discount yet again, Javert stiffened and nodded curtly. "Let us see how it fits," he said, and Éponine followed the dressmaker to the back room to put on the gown. Javert waited patiently in the front room, looking uncomfortably around at the myriad hats and bonnets and dresses that decorated the shop. He felt like a piece of his masculinity had been robbed of him simply by stepping foot in the shop, but, he admitted ruefully, this was a necessary purchase.

At last, Éponine emerged from the back, and Javert suppressed a gasp. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open; he could not help but gape. She looked marvelous. The dress suited her perfectly, hugging her womanly curves and making her look like a perfect doll. If this was what he was to present to the Duke of Orléans, well... he would be just fine with that.

Needless to say, Javert paid the dressmaker her money, and also bought a new calico dress for the journey for five francs and a new pair of stylish black boots that the dressmaker recommended from next door at the cobbler's.

They made their way to the inn where they were to spend the night, purchases in tow, and Éponine had quite the spring in her step. Javert got her settled into their room and went to find a cabriolet for hire to take into Trévoux. He did not wish to stumble into the Duke's camp, dusty and worn, after days of travel. He found a man waiting with a cabriolet on the side of a small street in Parcieux as night fell, and he approached the dandy-looking young man, clearing his throat.

"I'm not breaking any laws, Monsieur le Commissaire. I have a permit to vend this cab!" The man put his hands up defensively and shook his head vehemently. Javert sighed. Sometimes the uniform was a burden.

"Monsieur, I am here to rent your cabriolet," Javert said calmly. "I need to take it to Trévoux."

"Trévoux? Not far... I can send someone to pick it up and bring it back when you're done. How long will you need it?"

"A day," Javert shrugged. "A day and a half, at most."

The man scratched his unshaven chin and seemed to be considering a price. He glanced at Javert, taking in the uniform, and said meekly, "Four francs."

Javert thought it a particularly low price, though of course he would not say so, and willingly handed over two francs.

"Two now," he said, "and two when it is brought to the inn at sunrise."

"Fair enough," the cab owner nodded. Javert turned to go, and heard from behind him, "I'll bring you my fastest horse, Monsieur le Commissaire."

* * *

The next morning, Javert was driving the little carriage over the bumpy road, Éponine at his side, staring as he had been for the last three hours at the path in front of him. Their horse was a speedy dapple gray, elegant and large, and the cabriolet itself was in fine working condition. The large rigid apron above their heads had no tears or holes, and the black leather seats upon which they sat had no cracks.

Javert was growing more anxious with every passing mile, and, in the cabriolet, Trévoux was approaching with alarming speed. He began to chew on his lip as the horse trotted before him, and he realized he'd said nothing at all to Éponine for the better part of an hour.

"You look very beautiful today," he told her, for she was wearing her new dress and truly did look splendid. She smiled gently at him from under the lid of her new bonnet.

"I feel foolish," she confessed. "I've never dressed in such a way. My parents put me in the finest clothes they could afford when I was a child, but nothing so nice as this."

"Success should never make one feel the fool," Javert proclaimed, giving Éponine a firm glance. He flicked the whip as the horse stutter-stepped and said, "It is financial security that means we have food to eat, a warm place to sleep at night, and, yes, decent clothing to wear."

Éponine was silent for a long moment. Javert wondered what she was thinking. Was she angry at him? Had he upset her in some way? Finally, she spoke.

"It's not so terrible, you know. Being poor." She sighed deeply. "In some ways, it is rather liberating."

Javert snorted. "I have been poor. Very poor," he reminded her, "and I found it anything but enjoyable."

"Well, to each his own opinion," Éponine said in a flat voice, as if she had determined to leave the conversation at that. But, then, after another long moment, she said very quietly, "Marius chose to be poor."

Javert felt his blood boiling in his veins. "Marius Pontmercy is a fool in more ways than one," he declared, "and, anyway, I do not wish to discuss the boy."

"Very well," Éponine agreed tersely. They rode in silence for a good long while then, until it became uncomfortable again, and Javert felt the need to clarify to Éponine the reason why it was that he did not wish to talk of Marius.

"You know that I care for you very deeply," he murmured, flicking his eyes toward Éponine as he urged the dapple gray onward. Éponine nodded.

"And I you," she answered.

"I sometimes feel very possessive of you," Javert explained, feeling his emotions pour forth in words. "I sometimes feel as though everyone in the world is trying very hard to rip you away from me, and I have to fight to keep you. It is all I can do at times to keep myself from clutching you against my chest and holding you there until the end of time."

"Perhaps you should," Éponine said quietly. "I'd feel very safe there."

They rode all the way to Trévoux without another word, and this time there was no discomfort.

* * *

"Commissaire Javert? His Grace is ready to receive you."

Javert gulped heavily and stood from his velvet chair in the house in Trévoux where the Duke was staying. It was a Lyonnais merchant's villa, which had been gladly volunteered for the cause of reclaiming the city from the workers. It was finely adorned with delicate vases and beautiful paintings, and the furniture was elaborate and comfortable.

Javert looked down at himself and adjusted his uniform quickly but carefully, removing little pieces of dust and lint and smoothing out wrinkles. He tugged on his white gloves to ensure that they were snug on his hands, and he tucked his bicorn hat neatly under his arm. He smiled weakly, nervously, at the attendant who had come to fetch him, and followed the squirrely young man up a flight of stairs and down a narrow hallway, into what seemed to be a study.

"His Grace Prince Ferdinand Phillipe, Duke of Orléans," the attendant pronounced proudly, and Javert instantly fell to his knee in a genuflection of respect. He bowed his head.

"Commissaire Javert, I believe? Please, rise." The Duke spoke from a wingback chair that had been turned to face the doorway.

Javert tipped his face upward and saw the very young Duke of Orléans, seated casually in the chair. His hair was golden red, curling around his long, narrow face. He was only twenty-one years of age, Javert knew, and he looked not a day older, for he was tall and lean and youthful in every facet of his appearance. He wore a formal military uniform, a black jacket with gold tassels at the shoulders and golden buttons, and red trousers with a thick black stripe down the side.

"Your Grace," Javert murmured quietly, remembering vaguely that he'd been ordered to rise. He did, coming up off his knee in his rickety fashion, nodding in reverence toward the only royal face he'd ever seen.

"I understand that you have come to Trévoux at great peril," the Duke said, raising his eyebrows. Javert gulped again, his mouth very dry, and he tried to lick his parched lips. He struggled to find the words to say in response to the prompt.

"I was only attempting to follow my orders, Your Grace," he said finally.

"Tell me about how you arrived here." The Duke looked intrigued, though concerned, and Javert nodded and shifted anxiously on his feet, praying that he was not making an idiot of himself.

"I - we - that is to say, my wife and myself, we snuck out of Lyon by running alongside the Saône River. We were spotted and shot at, and so we hid under a bridge. We were pursued, so we hid underwater in the river until the pursuers were gone. My wife barely made it out alive. I carried her to an inn in Sathonay-Camp, and from there we walked to the village of Parcieux. I hired a cabriolet to bring us here to Trévoux, and now, well, here I am, Your Grace. Very happy indeed, I assure you, to be able to fulfill my orders."

He stood at attention then and waited, and saw out of the corner of his eye and the Duke was giving him a very wry smile.

"I must say, I am very impressed. Do you know, Marshal Soult remembers you from the Grande Armée? 'Javert? I remember a man called Javert,' he told me. 'Follows orders more closely than any soldier I've ever seen. Loves his country more dearly than his own life.'"

Javert blinked. He had absolutely no idea what to say in response to such flattery, particularly when it was coming from a member of the royal family.

"I insist that you be given a reward for your bravery," the Duke said firmly. "Ten thousand francs."

Javert's eyebrows shot up. He was shocked, truly shocked, that the Duke would think of rewarding him for simply trying to pursue his orders. Beside that fact, ten thousand francs was an alarmingly large sum.

"Your Grace," he said, gulping and shaking his head, "I can not accept -"

"I insist," said the Duke. "It will give my father a good deal of relief to hear what loyal subjects he has, and it is his will to reward them generously. Ten thousand francs, and I will not hear another word on it."

"Your Grace. My wife and I thank you very sincerely," Javert bowed low at the waist.

The Duke nodded. "France thanks you for your service, Commissaire Javert," he said. "Now, I need you to know that Marshal Soult and I are waiting here with our men for order to return in Lyon. It may take a week or more, but we are determined not to shed blood in the reconquest of the city. We hope that the presence of 20,000 men camping outside Lyon will be deterrent enough and that the Lyonnais canuts will give up their foolish rebellion. I wish for you to wait here in Trévoux until Marshal Soult and I enter Lyon peacefully. When we do, take news of our triumph back to Paris. Once there, return to your post under the Parisian prefect."

Javert bowed again. "Your Grace," he said quietly, "I am at your command."

The Duke smiled warmly and stood from his chair. He extended a hand to Javert to shake, and for a split second Javert stared at the hand as if it were on fire. A member of the royal family, shaking the hand of a commoner? It was ludicrous. Nonetheless, Javert reached out and timidly shook the Duke's hand.

"Do you know, Commissaire Javert, I believe Marshal Soult was right about you," the Duke said, and gestured that Javert was free to go.

Once Javert was back in the hallway, he took a deep breath of relief, for he'd not did did dishonored himself as miserably as he feared he would have. Poor Éponine, he thought absently. She'd bought a new dress and had not been invited to see the Duke. No matter. The dress was beautiful on her anyway. Besides, Javert thought with another sigh, Éponine would be shaking like a leaf if she'd just had to shake the hand of the Duke of Orléans. He looked down and his own trembling hand and realized he was doing no better, and he scoffed and shook his head as he walked briskly down the staircase.

* * *

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  
Three days passed, and the only news from Lyon was that the canuts were crumbling like a ruined building. They were alarmed by the presence of the army, as they were not well-trained fighters, and the city was hungry. It seemed that any day Marshal Soult and the Duke of Orléans would enter the city triumphantly waving the tricolor.

On December 2nd, Javert left Éponine at the inn where they had been staying in order to do a bit of birthday shopping. The next day, the third, was her birthday, and Javert wished to buy her something she would treasure. But what to purchase for a girl who did not relish the trappings of wealth? Another dress? Jewels? Perfume? Hair adornments? Cosmetics? None of those things seemed appropriate birthday gifts for Éponine for several reasons. First of all, buying her such things intimated that she needed them, that she was not sufficiently beautiful without them, and that was patently untrue. Javert found Éponine perfectly attractive just the way she was, without the accouterments of fashion to which other women so desperately clung. Part of the other problem was that it was only Éponine's eighteenth birthday, and Javert had little idea of what made an appreciated gift for someone so young.

What, then?

He walked down the Trévoux's primary retail drag and looked through the windows, hunting for ideas. Finally, he saw precisely the right present, right there in the window. He went into the shop, bought it, wrapped it in brown paper, and brought it back to the inn.

The next day, Éponine woke about five minutes after Javert, her brown eyes blinking slowly in the bright sunlight of the cold morning.

"Happy birthday," Javert said instantaneously.

She smiled at him, but moaned in apparent distress and rolled over. "No celebrations," she insisted.

"I've a gift for you, but I shall not celebrate any more than that if you do not wish," Javert promised.

He reached around and hooked his arm under the bed, pulling out the brown paper parcel. He handed it to Éponine, and she hoisted herself up against the pillows and smiled.

"A real birthday present," she breathed. "I've not had one in ages."

"Open it," Javert insisted nervously, praying that she would like what he'd purchased for her. He had liked it when he'd seen it, but one could never be certain with women.

She pulled gently on the twine binding the parcel together, and then she tore carefully at the thick brown paper, revealing the gift inside.

It was a mahogany box, lacquered and shiny, with pewter roses on the cover and a little pewter latch. Éponine smiled broadly when she saw it, flicking her eyes to Javert's with an expression of glee. She wound the box and opened it, and music instantly flowed from its hollow center. Mozart's "Panis Angelicus" plinked out in its lovely chords and melody from the metal cylinder that played when the Swiss music box was opened. Éponine listened carefully to the music until it stopped, and when she looked at Javert again, her eyes were wet with grateful tears.

"It's very beautiful," she whispered. "Thank you very much."

"I love you," Javert said simply. "I love you, and it is your birthday."

She wound the box again and listened once more to its dulcet tones, kissing Javert deeply as she leaned across the bed. Just as the song ended and Éponine pulled away from their kiss, Javert saw behind her that a folded piece of paper was slid under his door.

Curious, Javert rose from the bed and walked to the door. He unfolded the letter and read it, looking gravely at Éponine once he'd done so.

"Marshal Soult and the Duke of Orléans have retaken Lyon without spilling a drop of blood," Javert announced in a flat voice.

"Well, that's good news, isn't it?" Éponine prodded, swiping at her emotional eyes.

Javert folded the letter again and cleared his throat. "I am to leave immediately for Paris. I am to take the swiftest horse the army can provide, and I am to ride alone. I am to send for you after I arrive in Paris. I must leave right now."

"Right this minute?" Éponine looked distressed.

Javert just nodded, and he moved to begin getting dressed.

Éponine gently shut the lid of her music box and ran her fingers over the pewter flowers on the lid. "Happy birthday to me," she mumbled.

* * *

Javert did not see Éponine again for six weeks.

By the time he arrived in Paris and informed the prefect of the news from Lyon, he'd been gone from her for five days. Then he had to send a letter back to Trévoux telling Éponine to come to Paris by coach.

Javert sat down at his old writing desk, which Pauline had kept clean and neat in his absence. He put quill to paper and began crafting the letter he hoped she would cherish until she arrived at his side.

_My dearest Éponine,_

_These past days without you have worn a hole in my soul. It is odd to think how long I lived alone, and now I can tolerate it for so short a time. My bed is cold and empty. My meals are solitary and lonely. The lack of conversation is beginning to drive me a bit mad, I'm afraid._

_For these reasons and for the simple reason that you belong here beside me, I write to ask you to come to Paris as soon as it is feasible to do so. Please use some of the money I left you and hire a coach to bring you to the city. Please come home._

_- Your ever-loving husband_

Javert sent the letter by post, knowing it would not arrive for at least a week. Then, he waited. He tried to wait patiently, but it was impossible. Every day, he arrived home from work and eagerly threw the door open, hoping to walk in and see Éponine and kiss her theatrically. But every day, she was not there. There was no letter explaining the delay, just a prolonged absence that began to worry Javert terribly.

One night in the middle of January, Javert sat staring into the fire in the study, unable to sleep due to the cold and his anxieties. He watched as the bark on a log shriveled and glowed as it burned, and he pulled his velvet robe more closely around himself in a bid for warmth.

Would he ever see her again? Was she alive? Had some vagabond highwayman got ahold of her, seized on the prey of a young woman traveling without her husband? What if someone had taken advantage of her? What if she had not wanted to come home after all?

Tormented by these questions, Javert sighed deeply and drank from the wine goblet he held in his hands. The red vintage he sipped was a full-bodied Merlot, easy to drink with hints of black cherry and herbal flavors. This was Javert's third goblet of the stuff, and each one had proven more enjoyable than the last. He'd not aimed to drink to excess tonight, but the wine was dulling his sorrow and worry.

Suddenly, the door behind Javert creaked a bit, and he thought it must be blowing back and forth in the cold draft that plagued the study. But then there was the tiny pattering sound of footsteps in the room, and Javert quickly turned his head behind the chair to see who had walked in.

Éponine stood just inside the threshold of the door, looking resplendent in a pink silk gown that Javert had not seen before. She held onto the door jamb and smiled broadly at Javert.

"I'm sorry to startle you," she whispered, as though the late hour necessitated quiet. "I've only just arrived."

Javert blinked a few times and pinched his thigh to ensure that he was not, in fact, dreaming. No, it was truly her, his angelic wife, standing before him in all her glory. He had so many questions at once that he did not know where to begin, so he simply gulped and asked,

"Where are your things?"

Éponine nodded toward the front parlor.

"I'll bring them in for you," Javert told her, rising from his chair.

"There's not much," Éponine reminded him. Then, when he did not smile back at her, she said apologetically, "I did not receive your letter until two weeks after it was dated. Then, I could not find a coach willing to take me all the way to Paris. It took a week before I did. I came as quickly as I could."

Javert nodded. He supposed that made sense, though it rather irritated him that a letter in the post had taken two whole weeks to get to Trévoux.

"Where did you get that dress?" he asked, gesturing toward the poufy pink concoction Éponine wore and taking another sip of wine. "It's very nice."

Éponine flushed red. "I had a bit of money left over from the coach, and I saw it in the window of a dressmaker on the way from Trévoux. I hope you are not angry with me."

Javert smiled gently at her. She still did not know of his 10,000 franc reward from the Duke. She could have all the dresses she wanted.

"Of course I am not angry," he said simply, deciding that there would be other times to discuss the sudden influx of money.

Javert put the wine glass down on the writing desk and snaked his hands around the cream raw silk sash binding Éponine's waist. It felt marvelous to touch her again, to feel her body yield beneath his hands. He wordlessly placed one hand on her back and the other in her soft hair and pulled her close against him, relishing her aroma and the feel of her warm breath on his chest. He sighed heavily and smiled to himself, and he kissed the top of her head gratefully.

"Did you miss me?" Éponine murmured into Javert's robe, pressing her palm against his heart and raking her nails gently over his skin. Javert shivered.

"I missed you so much that... it physically hurt me," Javert said ruefully. "I should like never to be parted from you again."

"I promise," Éponine said, and she kissed the skin she had just been touching. "Let's begin tonight. Take me to bed."

* * *

In late March, Javert and the other members of the police force began noticing that many people throughout the city were falling ill. The Hôtel Dieu was beginning to fill up with patients complaining of a wide variety of symptoms from diarrhea and vomiting to headaches and apoplexy. Most were dead within a day or two of arriving at the hospital. Within a few days of its beginning, a cholera outbreak was confirmed. It was mostly confined to the poorer parts of the city, though it seemed to be spreading fast.

By the twenty-ninth of March, nearly every patient admitted to the Hôtel Dieu was a cholera victim. There were very few discharges from the hospital. Nearly everyone left in a canvas bag.

Javert was on patrol that night on the back of a horse that belonged to the police department. He tread carefully through the streets, avoiding the gutters that ran through the middle and flowed with sewage and garbage. The stinking mire now smelled of death, too, as there were corpses beginning to pile up and some were left abandoned on street corners in hopes that someone from the government would come and bury them. Some of the corpses on the street were cholera victims who had quite literally died where they stood.

Javert entered the outskirts of Saint-Michel for the first time in months, and the chestnut gelding he rode snorted as he did, as if the horse had as much disdain for the place as Javert did. In the shadows of an alley, Javert saw a man slumped down against a brick wall, and another man rifling through his jacket. It appeared as though a corpse was being looted.

Javert dismounted his horse and extracted a handkerchief from his pocket, holding it over his nose and mouth to mask the stench of death as he approached the body.

"You there," he said, and the looter swiveled, looking surprised to have been caught. The thief was none other than Thénardier. Naturally, Javert thought, the scum of the earth would seek to capitalize on the city's great misfortune. "We meet again," Javert sneered, pulling his club from its holster and thudding its shaft against his opposite palm.

"Good evening, Inspector." Thénardier tipped his moth-eaten hat at Javert and grinned toothlessly. "Long time since we've seen the likes of you around here."

"I am a Commissaire de Police now," Javert informed him proudly, holding his head high, "and the reason for my prolonged absence is precisely none of your business."

Javert realized abruptly that this ragged criminal over whom he wielded such authority was his own father-in-law, and he gulped at the cruel irony.

"How's 'Ponine?" Thénardier asked timidly, as if he'd been reading Javert's mind.

Javert narrowed his eyes and creased his brow. This man had sent a rapist to attack his own daughter and now inquired after her well-being? Father and daughter had not seen one another in over a year, and he now cared how she was doing?

"She is quite well," Javert said cautiously. He nodded toward the body. "Step away from the corpse."

Thénardier looked back over his shoulder and jumped as if he were seeing the corpse for the first time. He glanced at Javert with an expression of shock. "Dear me!" he exclaimed. "Poor fellow."

With that, he ambled slowly down the alley, away from Javert, tipping his hat again as he departed.

* * *

"I saw your father last night."

Javert cleared his throat anxiously after he pronounced the words, and Éponine shut the book she was reading at the dining room table. She pursed her lips as if she was contemplating how to approach the news, and she stared at the cover of the worn book.

"And?" she asked finally.

"And what?" Javert inquired, quite confused indeed. Éponine stared at him blankly, shook her head, and shrugged.

"What was he doing? Where did you encounter him? Did you speak of me? May I please have more information?" She looked irritated.

Javert sighed slightly and nodded, understanding that simply presenting a bold statement as he had might lead to mining for more facts, more knowledge.

"I found him looting a cholera victim," Javert informed Éponine, and she did not look at all surprised. "I did not mention you."

"Oh." Éponine sounded rather sad at that, as if she'd not been thought of in an encounter between her father and her husband.

"He did," Javert clarified. "He asked after you."

"Humph," Éponine spat. "He tries to kill me and then sees if I'm all right? I hope the guilt keeps him awake at night."

"I very much doubt that it does," Javert said sadly, thinking to himself that if there was ever soulless, heartless beast to roam the Earth, it was Thénardier.

"And Marius?" Éponine said suddenly, and Javert felt his stomach clench tightly as if he'd been punched. He gulped heavily and raised his thick eyebrows.

"What of him?" he asked, his voice trembling with anger and jealousy.

"Did you see him? Since you were in Saint-Michel?" Éponine prodded, looking hopeful.

"I did not," Javert said, shaking his head. "He was, no doubt, too busy plotting with his seditious companions to be seen by the likes of me. His schemes will be his downfall, Éponine, and I do not want you caught up in the hornet's nest. You are not to ever see him again."

Javert was not quite sure how he expected Éponine to react to that order, to his forbidding of friendship, but it was not the reaction he received. Perhaps he expected her to cry, or to be downright angry. Perhaps he expected a fight. Instead, Éponine's smiled sadly, and she looked a bit resigned, and she nodded.

In that moment, Javert felt so possessive of her that he nearly tore her fine dress from her skin and ravished her on the dining room table. Instead, he strode confidently to the chair where she sat and began massaging her shoulders very gently. He leaned down and kissed her ear so that she shivered, and he petted her soft hair mildly. His calloused fingers stroked the silky tendrils, relishing every strand for his own, taking in her lavender scent with each breath.

"You are mine," he whispered into her ear, his voice gravelly and rough with desire and emotion. "You belong to me and no one else. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Éponine whispered, and Javert knew that the long, long fight was over. She'd been conquered. "I am yours."

Over a year they'd been married, and for that first year Éponine had insisted that she belonged to no one, that she was her own woman and could be free of anyone and everyone at any given moment. Now, here she sat, her palms pressed hard against the lacquered wood of the table, her head tipped ever-so-slightly back as she strained to be nearer to Javert. As her face tipped further, his rough lips brushed against her satiny ones, and she whispered against his mouth,

"Will you take what is yours?"

Javert's breath became shallow and desperate then, and when he answered, his voice was husky.

"Yes. I believe I will."

* * *

Javert was abruptly overcome with a sense of wanting to possess Éponine fully, to take every ounce of her and claim her. He knew that the feeling had first blossomed when Éponine had asked after Marius. That set Javert speculating wildly in his mind whether Éponine still wanted the boy, even after all this time - even after fourteen months of belonging to Javert.

He growled aloud when she asked him if he was going to take her. He tugged at the neckline of her dress, one that he did not like very much. It was the pink poufy one and he'd had nothing to do with choosing it or buying it. That lack of control made him uncomfortable, and he tugged again. He pulled the neckline of the dress down off of Éponine's shoulders, feeling and hearing a few of the seams stretch and tear beneath his hands.

"Be careful," Éponine whined quietly, squirming in her chair.

"No," Javert replied, his voice firm. He felt a sudden urge to destroy the dress, to wreck this material evidence of their time apart. He yanked hard on the neckline and ripped it, watching with great satisfaction as buttons popped off of the back and pattered onto the wooden floorboards. He could see Éponine's stays and chemise now, for the sleeves of the pink monstrosity had slipped down Éponine's arms and the bodice was slumping. Javert gulped hungrily and determined that he would ruin everything Éponine was wearing, that he would tear her clothes to shreds and literally rip her bindings away until she was nude.

Éponine looked up at Javert with watery eyes, and Javert had a momentary worry that he'd hurt her by tearing so harshly at her gown, but then she just whispered,

"I liked this dress."

Javert slid Éponine's chair away from the table and pulled her roughly by the shoulders until she was standing and facing him. She panted a bit, seeming a little excited, and Javert mumbled breathlessly,

"I will buy you a new one. A better one. I will buy it."

At that, Éponine grinned widely, and Javert saw the realization cross her face as she comprehended the game of the evening. She clearly grasped the mood in which Javert was lost; she could see that he wanted her to submit wholly to him and let him be possessive and controlling tonight. Gratefully, Javert nodded at her, and Éponine swallowed heavily as she smiled weakly.

Javert pulled her against him and ripped again at the buttons on her back until the rest of them popped and flew. He grunted with pleasure as the bodice fell down and Éponine wormed out of its sleeves, and then he ripped around her waist until the skirts of the gown tore open wide enough to allow her to step out.

He pulled on the ties of her stays, unfastening the bow that bound the laces, and yanked hard on the ties until they were loosened just enough for him to squeeze his hands into the front of the garment. There, he tore as hard as he could, and he managed to rip the stays wide open from the front. Éponine gasped, shocked, and stared down at her ruined stays. She breathed deeply, freed from the restraint, and wordlessly gaped up at Javert as if she had just realized his strength. Her palms were skyward as her hands fumbled for a place, and after Javert tossed the torn stays aside, he grabbed her fingers and placed them on the hard lump that was forming in his formal police trousers. He was enormously aroused from seeing her disrobed one piece at a time and even more so from the acts of destruction he'd committed.

Éponine's chemise had ripped a bit when Javert tore the gown off of her shoulders, and he seized a small tear and ripped it further open, baring her right breast. Growling, he pawed roughly at Éponine's chest and palmed the soft, giving flesh there, mercilessly caressing her hardened nipple with his calloused thumb. He did the same to the other side of the chemise and then the garment fell in a silent ripple to Éponine's feet, leaving her utterly bare to the ravenous man before her.

"Shall we go in the... the bedroom?" Éponine panted anxiously, as Javert hungrily leaned down and seized her nipple in his mouth. He suckled roughly at her breast, pulling hard with his mouth and lapping with his tongue. Javert ignored Éponine's question for a moment, and then stood upright again and said in a husky, commanding voice, one usually reserved for his police work,

"You will allow me to decide, and I have decided that we will stay here."

Éponine's cheeks flushed red then, and Javert realized that she was aroused by this, too, by being bossed around by him. He certainly did not want to take anything too far, lest he bring up troubled memories of last year's incident, but he thought she liked him strong. She liked him confident.

Javert unbuttoned his trousers quickly, and nodded down to the area between his legs. "Take it out," he said gruffly, and Éponine smiled wryly. She walked up to him and reached her hand below his waist, but he clutched her wrist and shook his head. "Kneel," Javert ordered, and Éponine did, slowly sinking to her knees as Javert held onto her wrist. Once she was kneeling, he guided her wrist back to his crotch and manipulated her hand like a puppet to pull his cock out. He showed her just the way he liked to be stroked, holding his large hand over her small one and running them smoothly up and down, lingering on the tip. Eventually, he let go and let her do it on her own, and he bent his knees slightly and tipped his head back. He grunted quietly and sighed, and he tangled his fingers in Éponine's hair, digging his dull nails into her scalp.

Javert shut his eyes and focused on the magnificent feeling of Éponine's hands on him, and then he felt something warm and wet around his tip and shaft. He glanced down to see that she'd added her mouth to her ministrations, and Javert pulled her head roughly away from him.

She looked up at him, confused and hurt, and frowned.

"Did I tell you to do that?" Javert demanded, and Éponine shook her head no in admission. "Then you must be punished for your disobedience," he told her, smiling wickedly, his mouth curling up in a crooked grin. Éponine smiled, too, and he knew that she was still with him in this game.

Javert stalked over to a dining room chair and sat, and he patted his lap.

"Lie on your stomach here," he commanded, and Éponine did as he said. Javert held her wrists in one hand and raised his other hand high in the air. He lingered a few seconds so that she would not be prepared, and then he spanked her with a thunderous crack.

After his hand smacked her backside, the flesh immediately flamed red, and that excited Javert even more. He could feel his erection poking relentlessly into Éponine's stomach. He spanked her again, harder this time, and she cried out in a mixture of pleasure and pain. After three more cracks of his hand, Javert was panting with excitement and abruptly felt the need to be inside of her. His hand flew between her legs and he felt that she was soppingly wet and ready for him. He plunged his fingers roughly into her entrance and scissored them, relentlessly pounding his hand back and forth and grinning to himself as Éponine mewled out desperately in response to his ministrations. She cried his name and said,

"Please..."

Javert grunted, rubbing her clit and waiting for her to repeat her urgent pleas, listening to her voice grow hoarse with her arousal.

"Please what?" he demanded, spanking her a final time for good measure. "Please what, Éponine?"

"P-p-please... fuck me..." Éponine cried, her words coming out in a cracked sob.

"I will give you what you want," Javert said, panting through his grimace, "but only because I want it more."

He tossed Éponine down onto the floor unceremoniously, still careful not to be so rough as to abuse her. She looked up at him with hungry eyes and a wry smile and asked, "How would you like me, Monsieur le Commissaire?"

Javert growled again as he had been doing all evening and roughly positioned Éponine on her hands and knees, propping her rear end up to him so that he would have a better angle. As he loomed above her and met her eyes, he stroked his cock a few times and knelt slowly behind her. She continued to look over her shoulder at him, a bit apprehensively, and Javert scooted them forward so that they were on the Oriental rug. Javert grasped at Éponine's hips and held fast, squeezing her buttocks so hard that his dull fingernails dug into her flesh and he was sure there would be marks. He clutched at his member and aimed himself for her sodden entrance, placing his tip against her quivering folds and waiting a languorous moment as Éponine squirmed and moaned quietly.

"Ohh... please do it," she whispered, "I beg you."

Still, Javert waited, for he had all the power and all the control in this instant, and he relished the flush of pleasure that fact brought him. Éponine began swiveling her hips in a desperate attempt to urge Javert inside of her, and Javert spamked lightly at the cheek of her rear end and said curtly,

"Stop it. Stop moving,"

She did, but Javert felt a rush of moisture around his cock as she grew more aroused by his commands, They would not always, or even frequently, make love like this. Javert knew that. But in this instant he was the general of the army that was their marriage, and he would milk it for every moment,

He drove into her without warning, plunging his entire length into her entrance and eliciting a howl of surprise from Éponine's lips. Then he began pistoning furiously, holding onto her buttocks as he thrust himself in and out again and again. He patted at the cheeks of her backside, first very lightly and then more firmly, realizing that spanking her while he thrust brought him immense pleasure. Judging from her constant moaning and repetitions of his name, Éponine was also doing just fine.

"Do you like it when I fuck you?"Javert asked breathlessly, his voice hollow with want as he plunged himself again. Éponine nodded her head, but Javert spanked her to get a verbal response.

"Y-yes," Éponine stuttered, rocking back and forth from the vigorous thrusting she was enduring.

"Come for me, Éponine," Javert whispered, more to himself than to her, and he shut his eyes against the sensation of his own impending orgasm. "Come for me."

He put every ounce of energy he had into pounding her then, drubbing her for all he was worth and reaching around her hips to fiddle with her clit. Within a moment, he could feel her muscles clenching around his cock, could hear her moans grow into a half-shriek of pleasure, could see her tremble ferociously. She had obeyed. Spurred on by Éponine's completion, Javert pulled out of her and barked,

"Turn over. Face me."

Éponine did as he said, rolling onto her bottom and leaning back on her hands. Her drooping eyes met Javert's and she smiled weakly. Javert did not smile back. It would rather ruin the game. Instead, he took his left hand and held Éponine's face by her jaw. Then he stroked himself a few times, his eyes locked on hers. With a low groan, he released himself onto her face, his seed coming in spurts that landed on her cheeks and mouth. Éponine licked her lips hungrily while Javert was still finishing, the sight of which made him come even harder. Javert released Éponine's face and, knowing that the game was over, smiled warmly at her and said,

"Good girl. Now, do not ever mention Marius Pontmercy to me again, or I shall be forced to remind you that I am the only man in your life."

* * *

In early May, Javert was patrolling Saint-Michel again regularly and began to sense a growing discontent among the denizens of the slum. They seemed to be more than a little depressed and angry about the cholera epidemic. Javert was admittedly a bit confused by their anger; in his eyes, they had only themselves and their own squalor to blame for the death and pestilence.

He was, therefore, slightly baffled when he heard that General Jean Maximilien Lamarque had visited the Hôtel Dieu to see ill cholera victims.

Lamarque had been a commander in the French military during the Napoleonic Wars, and it was there that Javert first heard his name. Javert remembered hearing tales of Lamarque's valiant capture of Capri from the British. But Lamarque had always been an opinionated adversary of the _Ancien Régime_ in France, and after the Bourbons were overthrown in 1830, he was in charge of suppressing the Legitimists who sought to reinstate them.

Soon enough, Lamarque was opposing the government again, arguing that the new government was not adequately tending to human rights and liberty in France. In particular, he made frequent references in Parliament to the struggles of the poor and destitute, those with no political voice. For that reason, Lamarque had become a remarkably popular figure among the ordinary civilians of France and of Paris in particular. Javert noted with some derision that the revolutionary forces at work seemed to hold him aloft as a sort of emblem of the potential for change.

So when Lamarque visited the Hôtel Dieu to give regard to the cholera victims there, it was a wise political move in terms of easing tension among the populace and of drumming up support for himself. However, Lamarque had put himself at great risk of contraction of the horrific disease, and, sure enough, within a few weeks word got around Paris that Lamarque was taken ill. By early May, the rumors were confirmed. General Lamarque had cholera.

Lamarque was one of the first high-profile victims, but the fact that he had contracted it by exposure to the disease's poor victims only cemented a correlation between poverty and cholera in the minds of many Parisians. The people prayed for him to recover, that he would pull through, and day by day the reports varied. Lamarque was on death's doorstep. Lamarque was cured. Lamarque was taken ill again. Through it all, the people were restless and angry.

On the tenth of May, Javert passed a fountain that had long stopped running and saw the curly-haired student he'd once seen giving a treasonous speech at Notre-Dame. Again, the student was addressing a crowd. Javert approached the scene cautiously, surreptitiously, and remembered that a fellow policeman had once identified the curly-haired student as a young man called Enjolras.

"Friends!" cried the boy, "Enough is enough! When will we tire of seeing our mothers, our fathers, our sisters and our brothers… our _children_… perish in the streets and in our homes? For years the scythe of death has borne the shadow of hunger. Now it comes with the specter of disease, and who is to blame? Will you blame your God?"

"No!" cried the people in response, holding up their fists in rage. "Never!"

"Will you blame yourselves?" demanded Enjolras. Once more the dozens of people gathered shook their heads and shouted at Enjolras, who continued, "Then to whom shall we look? Let us look to the men at the Tuileries!"

At that, the crowd roared, and Javert felt a pit in his stomach. Of course. Of course the rabble like this Enjolras would try to make a political connection between the cholera outbreak and the government against whom he harbored such discontent.

"Indeed, my friends, I and many others are troubled by a strong and ominous suspicion that the wells are being poisoned by the government, in an attempt to clear out neighborhoods such as this. You see, my friends, the government does not _like_ to look upon Saint-Michel, for here it sees its own failures in action, its own shortcomings played out on the stage of life. Their solution is to kill you and rid themselves of the burden they see you to be!"

Javert was shocked. Was this Enjolras truly so bold as to stand out here in the square and spout off nonsense blaming the government directly for the cholera epidemic? If Javert had had more men with him, he'd have arrested the boy without question, but the crowd was so agitated that there was no chance he could haul Enjolras away without facing an angry mob. So, Javert simply observed and extracted a small notepad from his pocket, using a stubby pencil to jot down a few notes about what Enjolras was saying so that he could keep a file on the boy at the station.

"General Lamarque languishes with cholera so that you and I might know of his support for us!" Enjolras cried, and the men in the crowd removed their hats respectfully. "Let us not betray him by forgetting ourselves. This nation has been built upon the bones of barricades! Throw down your chairs, your tables, and your windowsills. Bring out your sons and come armed with your courage. Our time draws near. The end of tyranny is dawning!"

When the speech was over, the crowd dispersed, with members of the public walking around Javert as if he were a stinking, rotting corpse himself that needed to be avoided.

Then Javert saw him, patting Enjolras on the back and smiling. Marius Pontmercy.

He'd not seen the young student in many months, and he was undeniably overcome with negative emotion upon seeing him. There he was, the youthful man for whom Javert's own wife still cloaked affection. Éponine may have tried to conceal and deny her feelings for Marius, but Javert was not a fool. He knew she still bore the young student love.

Certainly, Javert knew that Éponine loved him, her husband, very much. Yet, at times, he wondered that if he were gone and if Marius had loved Éponine in return, if the two would not have wound up together. He hoped not, for many reasons. First of all, this Marius was a dreamer and chose poverty over his own inherited wealth. Javert thought that to be foolhardy and unwise. Marius would have never provided for Éponine. Instead, he would have been more concerned with his own self-righteous aesthetic. The other reason was because Marius was swept up in all of this revolutionary nonsense, and Éponine would be caught up in it, too, if she were the mistress or wife of Marius Pontmercy.

So, when Javert looked upon Marius, it was with great disdain. He sighed slightly to himself and turned to walk away. As he strode through the square and reached a shadowy alley corner, his head hanging low, he felt a tapping on his shoulder and whirled around.

"Monsieur le Commissaire."

It was Marius. Javert narrowed his eyes and felt distinctly uncomfortable standing so close to the young man he saw as his enemy after such a time of separation.

"Monsieur Pontmercy," Javert nodded curtly.

"How is Éponine?" Marius asked, beaming very tenderly as he thought of her. Javert could tell that he was still excited from the speech that Enjolras had given, and that irritated Javert even more. Now, he was inquiring after Javert's wife. It was too much. Javert shifted on his feet, feeling the mud squelch beneath his shoes, and cleared his throat.

"She is well," he said, flicking the corners of his lips up in a sour little smile. He nodded again, once, and said, "Good day to you."

"Wait!" Marius cried as Javert turned to go. Javert paused and looked expectantly at Marius. "Will you please tell her… tell her that I am very sorry for all the years I ignored her? It is simply not the same here without her. I wish she were still my friend, but… but I am glad she is happy and well."

Javert lowered his eyes, abruptly ashamed at himself for his hostile bitterness. He should have been thinking of Éponine and Éponine alone.

"She is still your friend, Monsieur Pontmercy," Javert murmured, "and I imagine she always will be. Good day."

* * *

Javert opened and shut the door of the house very quietly, hoping not to disturb Éponine if she were asleep. It was already nearly midnight, and he'd worked a ten-hour shift today. Feeling rather exhausted from being on foot for so long, Javert removed his boots at the door and padded quietly down the hallway into his bedroom. He saw Éponine's huddled little form, her back rising and falling slowly and deeply as she breathed in her sleep.

Javert was exhausted from his day at work. He had felt dizzy earlier in the day, perhaps a bit feverish, but had ignored the symptoms as undoubtedly part and parcel of being excessively tired. He'd been working ten-hour shifts with increasing regularity since the outbreak began, and he'd thoroughly convinced himself that he was immune to the disease as a policeman. After all, the people of Paris were relying on him for assistance in this time of distress. He could scarcely afford to be ill. So his clammy skin and spinning head were disregarded as indications of exhaustion.

Javert undressed very quietly in the darkness, paring off his uniform one piece at a time and putting on his nightshirt. He peeled back the blankets on his own side of the bed and climbed in as unobtrusively as possible, but Éponine still stirred mildly and rolled over to face him.

Her face was angelic in the moonlight; the milky light illuminated her porcelain features and made her look like a perfect little doll. Her dark waves undulated around her head and the loose neckline of her nightshirt had fallen off of one shoulder. Javert smiled at her and then pursed his lips, wondering whether or not to reveal his encounter in Saint-Michel. Finally, he whispered,

"I saw Marius Pontmercy today, and he said to tell you he misses you dearly."

Éponine's face was serene then. She did not look surprised, nor did she look ecstatic or excited. Javert was surprised, pleasantly so, that she did not have a dramatic reaction to his words. He was likewise pleased when she reached over to him and coursed her fingertips over his beard and mumbled sleepily,

"Thank you for telling me, Husband."

In that moment, Javert wished for nothing more than to seal his own closeness to her, to solidify it with physical interaction and to guarantee in his own mind that she did in fact love him. So he urged Éponine to roll back over, away from him, and wordlessly hiked up the skirt of her nightgown. He reached around her to play with her clit while he kissed the delicate skin on her neck. She shivered when he whispered into her ear,

"You've no idea how very much I love you, Éponine."

Then she whispered into the dark, chilly air ahead of her, "Mmm… show me."

Javert silently entered Éponine from behind, rocking against her as he spooned with her, and when he finished inside of her he shuddered against her body and gripped her shoulder for all he was worth.

As they lay flush against one another, panting in the stillness of the night, Javert whispered, "How did I live so long without you?"

Éponine sighed and Javert knew she was smiling. "You never have to again," she promised. "Never again."

Javert thought of that happy oath as he drifted off to sleep, still tangled with his wife.

* * *

As it turned out, Javert was right about his symptoms abating with time. They did, within a few weeks of feeling somewhat trembling and miserable. What he did not count on was the possibility of transmission of his symptoms to Éponine, and when she gradually started to fall ill, Javert began to worry fiercely.

On May 20th, she started shivering despite the pleasant warmth in the house.

"It's cold today," she said on the 21st, emerging from the bedroom wrapped in her warmest velvet winter robe. Javert looked at her confusedly and shook his head. He himself was clad in a lightweight linen shirt and summer cotton trousers, for it was one of the warmest days the city had seen in May in years. He walked with some urgency to where Éponine stood in the threshold of the bedroom doorway and placed his hand on her forehead.

She was roasting, her skin damp with sweat and scorching hot to the touch. Javert felt his stomach sink, and he gulped heavily. How could she have contracted the disease? It had occurred to Javert very deliberately that he had somehow rescued Éponine from cholera by liberating her from Saint-Michel. After all, he reasoned, if she'd been living in the slum, surely she would have already fallen ill and perished. But here, in their rather posh neighborhood, she was safe. Wasn't she?

That very day, Javert sent for a doctor, offering the man a large sum of money to come directly to Javert's house and examine Éponine. Doctors had become very scarce in Paris, and those who could be found were now price-gouging, demanding enormous tributes for the privilege of care. Nurses were likewise nearly impossible to obtain; they were so bogged down by work in the hospitals that they could not be bothered with home care. Maids who would normally do anything for their employers in order to earn their way were now balking at the prospect of caring for the ill. Indeed, when Javert asked Pauline to stay with Éponine when he was at work, Pauline's eyes widened and she simply shook her head.

"Monsieur, I am terrified of the cholera," she said firmly. "Sack me if you must, but I will not stay."

Javert had sighed and shaken his head. "I can hardly blame you," he said hopelessly, waving goodbye to Pauline and deciding that the very last thing he would do to the poor woman was permanently dismiss her.

At four in the afternoon, the doctor arrived on Javert's doorstep, clad in a black morning suit and carrying a leather bag full of supplies.

"Good afternoon," Javert said cautiously to the doctor, beckoning him into the entryway. The doctor nodded silently, looking more like an undertaker than a provider of medical assistance. "My wife is just through here," Javert said, his voice trembling a bit as he led the doctor down the dim, narrow hallway to the bedroom where Éponine was resting.

He pushed open the creaky door and saw Éponine bundled in the bed, surrounded by plush blankets and poufy pillows. She smiled when she saw the doctor, and Javert was pleased to see she did not look quite as weak or pallid as he'd been expecting her to appear. The doctor glanced sideways at Javert as if the latter were insane for paying for a doctor's services given his wife's apparently healthy state.

"What seems to be the matter?" the doctor asked quietly, laying his hat down upon the dresser. He stood beside Éponine and addressed both her and Javert.

"A few weeks ago, I was feeling somewhat unwell," Javert said. "Now, I am much improved, but my wife has subsequently developed chills and a fever."

"Hmm..." The doctor pressed his palm to Éponine's flushed cheek and nodded. "Have you been able to eat or drink, Madame?" he inquired. Éponine shrugged.

"If I try to eat anything more substantial than soup, I vomit," she admitted, "but I can tolerate water and thin soups just fine."

The doctor straightened and pulled on the hem of his jacket. At the foot of the bed, Javert anxiously crossed and uncrossed his arms, clearing his throat as he awaited the doctor's verdict.

"My diagnosis is that she is in the very early stages of cholera," the doctor concluded. "There is little other reason for fever and vomiting in the city at this time. However, you yourself were able to pull through the disease, Monsieur le Commissaire, without much difficulty or even many symptoms, so I do sincerely hope that the Madame may do the same. I would strongly recommend that you do not admit her to a hospital. They only serve to incubate the disease with more fervor. Continue to eat soup and drink plenty of liquid, as the vomiting and diarrhea will dry out the body rapidly. There are many folk cures in which you may invest time and money, though I have not seen evidence of the efficacy of any of them. The best cures are rest and liquid, in my opinion."

That sounded like poppycock to Javert, for he figured there must be some sort of medication, some tincture or potion, that the doctor could provide for enough money. But, then, even General Lamarque was said to be dying of cholera, and he himself had plenty of resources to afford adequate medical care.

Nonetheless, Javert followed the doctor's orders, and, sure enough, over the next few days, Éponine was well enough to sit up in bed and then even to walk about the house. She even ate a few bites of bread, but Javert noticed that her diet of soup was causing her to slowly waste away to the emaciated frame she'd had when first he had met her.

By May 31st, Javert was hesitant to leave her to go to work. There was no one to watch over her, though, for Pauline had refused and neither Javert nor Éponine had friends or family upon whom to call in their time of need.

They had only each other, and now Javert was stalking reluctantly out the door in his boots and uniform, ready to patrol the disease-ridden slums again.

As he rode through the rue des Grés, he noticed in the distance that a steady stream of young men were exiting a building. Javert knew the front of it to be the Café Musain, and he held his horse back as he watched the men sneak out of the back entrance one by one. They thought no one could see them, Javert realized, and it was true that he was rather hidden by the shadows of the dark little street. Javert recognized a few of the young men coming out of the café. One, the one who held a bottle of wine, was the one who'd been walking with Marius long ago at Notre-Dame. Javert recalled that his name had been Grantaire. Then there was the infamous Enjolras, his bright curls gleaming in a small patch of sunlight. Finally, trailing behind the others, Javert saw Marius Pontmercy, and he was not entirely surprised.

For some reason, Javert wanted to approach Marius. He was not sure exactly what he would say. Perhaps he would inform the boy that Éponine was ill, but that her case of cholera was not terribly serious. Maybe he would even ask Marius to come visit her, just to lift her spirits. Instead, Javert simply watched as Marius disappeared down the rue des Grés, wondering in what treason the boy had been complicit today. With that bitter thought, Javert turned his chestnut gelding and rode quietly out into the Place Saint-Michel, setting his mind to other tasks.

Later that day, Javert happened to be patrolling through the rue Saint-Honoré, along with three other officers, when he spotted a large crowd pressing together outside the home of General Lamarque. Javert wondered absently if the general had already died, if these were eager mourners. He approached on horseback with his coworkers and listened to the young man who simply would not disappear - Enjolras. Beside him, Javert noticed with a twinge of regret, was Marius Pontmercy.

"General Lamarque is stalked by death!" Enjolras cried. "As are we, the ordinary citizens of this city! How much longer before the people rise and take back our country? How much longer before the streets are blocked by barricades crafted by the hands of many - barricades crafted to reclaim power from the few? When will it be our turn to bask in the sunlight?"

Troubled by the eagerness with which the student spoke, knowing that the discord and discontent in the city was quickly approaching a boiling point, Javert urged his horse forward to disperse the crowd.

"_Vive_ General Lamarque!" cried those gathered. "_Vive la France! Vive la France! Vive la France_!"

As they chanted and pushed and shoved and surged, Javert realized that the threat the state faced in the form of its own people was greater than he could have ever imagined.

The next evening, the news spread like wildfire. General Lamarque was dead. He had passed quietly and quickly in his sleep after weeks of languishing through the stages of cholera. He'd been a fighter. That's what everyone was saying. He'd been a soldier to the end. Rumors flew that his last word was "_egalité_," that he'd left a franc to every Parisian in his will, that he had died clutching a French tricolor. Word even circulated that his body was to be burned by the government so that the people could not worship his grave.

By nightfall, Javert returned home to find Éponine sitting in a wingback chair in the study, an unnecessary fire burning in the fireplace into which she stared blankly. She did not turn her head when Javert entered the room, and he noticed that her hair was tangled and mussed.

"How are you today?" he asked cautiously, and when Éponine turned her face, Javert nearly gasped. She was pale and gaunt, and her skin glistened with the sheen of a cold sweat. Éponine's skin looked as though it had been stretched across her bones, as if someone had taken a very thin piece of parchment and forced it over a metal frame.

"I am not well," Éponine admitted. "Nothing of substance, neither food nor drink, will remain in my body for long."

Javert sighed deeply, feeling a wrench in his gut and a flutter of anxiety in his chest that he'd not experienced since the night he'd pulled Éponine out of the river in Lyon. "What may I do for you?" he asked gently.

Éponine simply shook her head. "Just sit beside me," she begged him, and she patted the chair beside her. Javert did, sinking slowly and reluctantly onto the upholstered chair and drumming his fingers against the arms.

"General Lamarque has died," Javert said unceremoniously, deciding that the best way to inform a cholera patient that another patient had perished of the disease was to state it bluntly. Éponine nodded.

"There will be riots tonight," she predicted, and Javert knew that she was right. Still, he had worked twelve hours today, and his wife was ill. It was up to the rest of the department and the National Guard to handle crowd control. Tonight, his place was in his own home.

Later, as Javert tucked Éponine into bed, he felt her bones poking insistently from beneath her dehydrated skin, and he felt nauseous. He did not like - no, he could not _stand_ - to see her body degraded in this way, ravaged by a disease. Once Éponine was asleep, Javert fell to his knees beside the bed and clutched his hands together, lacing his fingers. He clenched his eyes and sniffed once, softly. He spoke silently, in his mind, but it was the most fervent speech he'd ever composed.

"_My Lord_," he prayed, "_I know that I do not often speak to you, and when I do it is very usually to ask you for something. I do not often enough simply pause to give thanks. Allow me to first do that. Thank you, thank you... for Éponine. If you take her from me, my heart will shatter. I will be empty. I will be nothing. But I will not blame you for wanting her as your angel in Heaven as I have cherished her as my angel on Earth. She is my night, my day. She is my sun, my moon. She is my food and drink, my home and my family. She has saved me from my own pitiful, directionless self and has salvaged a lost life. For each day I have spent with her, my Lord, I give you my unending gratitude. I shall now be enormously selfish and beg you for more. Do not take her from me yet. I am old, but she is young. Please, please give us more time. Have mercy, for I very much believe I could not pass another day in this world without her_."

Javert paused and glanced over to where Éponine slept, looking peaceful despite the malady raging in her body. Javert sighed gently and felt a lone tear trickle from his eye. Swiping it away with one finger, he whispered into the night,

"Amen."

* * *

The next morning, Javert was awakened by the sound of pounding on his front door. Jolted awake, he threw on his dressing-robe and dashed down the hallway to the front entrance. The pounding continued, unabated, until Javert threw open the door and saw his Côntroleur Général standing in the entryway. It was not yet light, and yet the superior officer was in his full dress uniform, so Javert figured something awful must be happening.

"Please excuse my appearance," Javert mumbled to the Côntroleur. "My wife is ill in the house. If you will allow me to dress quickly, we may speak outside."

"I have been through the slums. If I were to catch cholera, I would have done so already," the Côntroleur said dismissively. "This is an urgent matter. Please, let us talk immediately inside."

Surprised and overtaken by a feeling of dread, Javert ushered the Côntroleur inside and led him down the hallway to the study. He dragged the chairs until they were facing one another, and then he made a motion for his superior to sit. Javert then did the same.

"Javert," the Côntroleur began pensively, "Have you ever done undercover work before?"

Javert raised his eyebrows. Undercover work? This _was_ serious. "No, Monsieur." He shook his head. "I have not."

"Well, soon you will have done. Lamarque's funeral is in a few days. The rioting last night was stifled effectively, but we are anticipating greater problems at and after the funeral. What we need is for a high-ranking, knowledgeable, and trustworthy officer to go undercover into the revolutionary ranks and inform us as to their workings and plans. You are to attend the funeral in plain clothes. Blend in with the crowd. Then, whatever happens subsequently, make sure we know every detail. Do you understand?"

Javert nodded curtly. "I do, Monsieur le Côntroleur. Will there be someone to watch my wife? She is very ill."

"I will be fine."

Javert and the Côntroleur turned their heads at the sound of Éponine's voice coming from the study doorway. She was standing in the doorway in her midnight blue velvet robe, her hair tied into a thick braid trailing down her back. Javert felt his cheeks redden, embarrassed that the Côntroleur was seeing his wife in such a state of undress.

Nonetheless, the Côntroleur simply said, "If you are quite certain, Madame, that you are well enough to care for yourself here, then, Javert, you are to be in plain clothes at the funeral when it happens. Be armed. Be ready."

Javert nodded and glanced from his superior officer to Éponine. He could not help but have an immense feeling of dread, both because of Éponine's health and because of his assignment. He had a sincerely bad feeling that the next several days would not pass smoothly.

* * *

On the fourth of June, it was announced that Lamarque's funeral would occur the following day, and that all in the city were welcome to peacefully appear and pay their respects as the cortege passed in the streets.

The night of the fourth, Javert could not sleep a wink. He was absolutely terrified. Normally, he would not be afraid of being killed in the line of duty, but in this instance it would mean leaving Éponine behind, and that in turn would mean leaving her to die alone. He had very little confidence that she would survive long without care and attention, and even if she did, she would need ongoing rest to recover from her illness. That would mean resources, ones that Javert needed to work to provide. He had a will, and, of course, everything in it was left to Éponine, but there was only so much. Most of the money Javert could leave Éponine consisted of the remainder of the reward he'd been given by the Duke of Orléans while he'd been in Lyon. The rest was a small savings. In truth, Javert's day-to-day earnings supported their comfortable lifestyle. The thought had crossed Javert's mind more than once that, once he died, whether of old age or whether shot down in duty, Éponine would need to quickly find a new husband to support her – else she would be forced back into the slums from whence she'd been pulled.

And whom would she marry? Marius Pontmercy? Again, Javert thought of how foolish a notion that was. And, anyway, the boy was just as likely to die in the coming days as Javert was. Éponine was more alone in the world than Javert liked to think, and tomorrow when he left her to go undercover, she would truly, honestly be all alone. She'd be rattling about an empty house while Paris potentially exploded in conflict, deteriorating from disease and helpless to the chaos around her.

How was Javert to focus on his work with such distractions? How was he to do his job effectively, to successfully obtain and transmit information, when the only thought on his mind would be a nagging worry about Éponine?

Javert tossed and turned in bed as he pondered this conundrum, and finally he heard Éponine's little voice croak,

"What's wrong?"

"I worry for you," Javert said, after a moment of hesitation. He did not wish to make her feel like a burden, but neither could he lie to her. Javert had never been a good liar, yet another reason why he predicted his own failure at undercover work.

Éponine sighed in the darkness, and she reached under the covers to grasp Javert's hand. He coursed his thumb across her palm and fingers and felt the raised scars from where, more than a year earlier, she had snatched the knife from Javert's hand. Feeling sick again, Javert gulped and clenched his eyes shut to stave off the sudden rush of hot and bitter tears that had gurgled their way to his eyelids.

Éponine pulled herself weakly against Javert's chest and clenched her bony fingers in the kinky hair there.

"I worry for _you_," she whispered. "What if something were to happen to you tomorrow? I could not stand it…"

She started softly crying then, and Javert abruptly felt very guilty indeed.

"Hush," he said as gently as he could manage, petting her hair and kissing the top of her head. "I will not go."

"You must!" Éponine looked up at him with sodden eyes. "It is your duty."

"My duty is first to you," Javert told her, knowing in his heart that it was true.

Éponine gave him a sad little smile. "You'd have never said that sixteen months ago," she reminded him. "For almost your entire life, your work has been your spouse. Now look at me. I am broken. I am damaged and ruined and weary. Do not surrender yourself for me. You must be there tomorrow, and if you are asked, you must fight. You must do what you know to be right, and you must honor yourself and your country."

Javert had never heard her speak such sense, though at the moment it was the very last thing he wanted to hear. The tears he had been fighting to suppress began tumbling silently from his eyes, and he murmured,

"Promise me that when I come home, you will be waiting for me."

"I promise," Éponine nodded, shutting her eyes. Within moments, she was asleep on Javert's chest, and he did not move her. He brushed his rough-skinned fingertips against her soft hair throughout the night and waited for morning, for the time when he would have to leave her. All he could do in the interim was hope with all hope that he survived the funeral – and whatever crucible exploded thereafter - to come back home.

* * *

In the morning, Javert was awakened by the feeling of Éponine stirring on his chest, and he realized that, somehow, he had drifted off to sleep during the night. Wondering absently what time it was, Javert glanced down with groggy eyes to see Éponine's pallid and sunken gaze staring up at him in the early morning's light. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her cheeks streaked with salt, and Javert could see that she'd been lying there for a while, crying silently.

There were many words he could say to comfort her. He could tell her he did not want to leave her. He could tell her how much he loved her, that he'd prayed for more time with her and that he needed her. He could kiss her and rock her in his arms until her tears abated.

Instead, he wordlessly slithered from beneath her and began to silently dress into the same plain brown clothes he'd worn when they'd made their escape from Lyon. She also said nothing, just sighed lightly as she lay on her stomach where Javert had left her in the bed.

Javert loaded his cherished Francotte Pinfire Revolver at the desk, still not speaking a word. The gun was ten years old; Javert had had it imported from Belgium a few years after its invention, when he first arrived in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Its barrel was octagonal and over six inches in length, and it fired five rounds before needing reloading. The well-crafted revolver had an engraved wooden handle and silver filigree. It was Javert's very favorite gun. He put more 11-millimeter rounds into a canvas ammunition bag that he tucked under his shirt. He figured he'd be needing them at some point.

Javert pulled on his brown woolen hat, the final piece of his costume, and glanced at himself in the tarnished mirror on the wall. He hardly recognized himself. Behind him, he could see Éponine staring at his face, and he hardly recognized her, either. She looked starved and translucent, and Javert gulped weightily. His guilt at leaving her was so immense, so heavy, that he could scarcely breathe.

He turned to her and she said simply, "Goodbye for now, then."

Javert sighed deeply. He nodded and turned to go. He could not speak, for every time he tried, the words got caught in his throat and mangled by a mess of emotions. He paused in the threshold and looked over his shoulder, and he managed to murmur,

"You have made me a promise. You will be here when I return."

Éponine nodded, giving Javert a very gentle smile. She looked serene, happy, resigned. "I will," she affirmed. "I will be here. I love you."

Javert tried to answer her, but his response came out a choked, unintelligible whisper. He blinked away hot tears and strode quickly from the room, placing his hand on the gun at his hip and steeling himself for the fight ahead.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  
Two hours later, Javert stood in an enormous, silent crowd in the Place Vendôme, waiting for Lamarque's funeral cortège to come and halt there. He stood very near the Vendôme Column, which had been erected by order of Napoleon in order to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz,

Though Javert had not personally fought at Austerlitz, he was intimately familiar with tales of glory of the great battle, which had been to that point Napoleon's very greatest victory, in which the Grande Armée crushed the Third Coalition. So glorious was the win that this entire space was dedicated to it, and the great Napoleonic general Lamarque would pass by the Column to pay respect on his way to his final resting place.

As the cortège neared, the already hushed crowd grew completely silent. This was a man for whom they had all the respect in the world, a man they honored far above the royal king who ruled them. Now he was dead, and his earthly body was processing by them. Women silently wept. Men removed their hats and sighed, shaking their heads remorsefully. As the cortège halted in front of the Column, the crowd began to very quietly sing "La Marseillaise." Just a few were singing at first, but soon the many thousands gathered had joined in calling one another to arms with the words of the national anthem.

The cortège continued down the rue de la Paix, in a perpendicular line away from Javert. Suddenly, a man shouted out, from somewhere about a hundred yards away,

"Down with Louis-Phillippe!"

A hush fell over the crowd. They at first seemed shocked that someone would yell such words, words that could earn a man a quick trip to the gallows, but then, very soon, others had chimed in,

"Down with Louis-Phillippe! Down with the King!"

Javert felt a rush of fear and loathing as the crowd around him erupted into cheers and chants. "Down with the King!" they shouted, "long live the Republic!"

Abruptly, Javert noticed that he was the only one in the crowd still standing silently, and he realized that he would be quickly discovered as a police agent if he did not act to blend in. So, flicking his eyes hatefully from side to side and gritting his teeth, he cried out in a reluctant voice, "Long live the Republic!"

Coming from him, it almost sounded like a suggestion, not a demand, but he repeated it a few times until even he almost believed he was one of the hoard of republicans clamoring for the king's head.

The cortège stopped again, and Javert glanced around the shorter men around him to see what was the cause of the delay. He quickly saw that there were perhaps a dozen young men climbing aboard the carriage bearing Lamarque's coffin, holding aloft red flags bordered in black and yelling in triumph. Very soon thereafter, they had captured the carriage and were diverting its route.

The crowd surged forward, Javert with it, to follow the carriage in its new path toward the Place de la Bastille. Shouting and pumping fists in the air, many in the crowd seemed to be actively joining the students in their cause of revolution. Others scurried away as quickly as they could, having only wanted to pay tribute to Lamarque and wanting nothing to do with the chaos that would undoubtedly explode soon. Mothers ushered children away, and old men hobbled down alleyways as quickly as their rickety bodies would allow.

But the young - the young were eager for a fight, and they began flowing enthusiastically to the Place de la Bastille. Once they reached it, they gathered around the dilapidated elephant statue and listened in earnest to one revolutionary after another speak of a Republic. Javert saw the little boy called Gavroche, who was a regular in Saint-Michel, peek his head out of the top of the elephant, seemingly watching and listening attentively.

At last, it was the turn of Enjolras to speak, and when he did, his curls shook furiously. Javert pursed his lips angrily. He had heard one too many of Enjolras' self-righteous speeches, and this one was no better.

"My friends!" Enjolras cried, "We killed one King. The crown tumbled from his head and landed squarely on that of another. There was an intermediary, to be certain, in the form of Napoleon, but we are back where we started. Life is a journey, not a circle. People ought not end where they began in history; a people ought to move ever onward. Lines, not circles, will be the shape of progress. Yet, here we are, caught in a never-ending circle, going round and round, turning about until we are so dizzy we can not even place ourselves in the cosmos. How is it that we found ourselves in this position, countrymen? It was greed, pure and simple. Who has listened to the voices of the millions who make this country function? No one has, but for Lamarque, and we have lost him. He would have wanted us to fight, my friends, for our rights and for our freedoms. If he could see today Paris in its throngs, gathered and singing and cheering and strong, ready to reclaim what is rightfully ours, I do believe Monsieur Lamarque would be terribly proud indeed. Let us make him smile in Heaven. To the barricades!"

The crowd gathered, mostly young men and a few eager women, cheered loudly. The young man called Grantaire rose up from the crowd with a black-bordered red flag, bearing the words "Liberty or Death." Upon seeing his flag, the crowd roared so vociferously that Javert's ears hurt, and he felt his heart pound as he glanced anxiously over to the government troops gathered around the perimeter of the crowd.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang and a bright flash, and a small cloud of smoke rose from the outer rim of the gathering. Startled, the crowd flinched as one and began shrieking in rage. Women screamed at the sound of the gunshot, and men shouted their anger, especially when they saw that an elderly woman was slumped and bleeding in her husband's arms.

"Murderer!" cried many of the gathered protesters. "Murder, murder!"

They dragged a government soldier off his horse, though Javert could not be certain it was the one who had fired. He disappeared into the crowd, and Javert's gut roiled with anxiety when he saw fists flying and feet swinging as the protesters beat the soldier to death. The other soldiers pulled back, horrified by what they'd just witnessed.

Javert saw a young man pull himself onto the horse from which the poor soldier had just been dragged. With a pang of anger, he realized it was Marius Pontmercy who had just mounted the horse, who was now shouting with Enjolras above the din of the crowd,

"To the barricades! To the barricades!"

The crowd streamed from the Place de la Bastille, no longer boxed in by government troops, and surged to the side streets. Javert went dashing after the horse Marius was riding, upon which he was cantering through the throng out of the square. Enjolras and Grantaire were headed that way, too, along with a few dozen others, and Javert merged into the crowd to join their fight.

In the little street they reached, Marius and Enjolras began shouting at people to throw down furniture from their homes, and Javert helped piece the wood and metal they gathered together to form a wide and tall roadblock. The barricade was sturdy and bulky and would provide good cover in the inevitable battle to come.

Once the barricade was constructed, Javert spotted Marius shoving a chair further into the structure. Everyone else had gone into the tavern just off the street in order to gather guns and ammunition.

Javert glanced around to ensure that no one was watching or listening. Then he sidled up alongside Marius and pretended to be straightening the barricade, too.

"Monsieur Pontmercy, I do not know you and you do not know me," he mumbled, and with surprise in his bright eyes, Marius glanced over to Javert.

"Monsieur le Commissaire," he whispered, "what on Earth are you doing here?"

"I promised Éponine I would make sure you did not die," Javert lied, trying to sound convincing. He was hardly about to admit to Marius that he was here undercover, and it seemed plausible that Éponine would fret about his safety. And, anyway, it was not entirely a lie. Javert could have gone to a different barricade. He had chosen this one because he truly wanted to try to make sure that the boy did not die unnecessarily. If he did, it would break Éponine's heart, and that was the very last thing Javert wanted to do. "Do not reveal my identity," he warned, "or my mission will change to ensuring that you do die."

Marius nodded gratefully. "I do not know you, and you do not know me," he repeated. "Welcome to the revolution, Monsieur. I shall watch your back, as well."

* * *

Hours later, the barricade was a flutter of activity as the students assembled their weapons and prepared for an attack they were sure was coming. Javert watched with rapt attention, taking in every minute detail he saw. He quickly put names to faces and identified the weak and the strong members of the motley crew. Around the middle of the afternoon, Enjolras called out to those around him,

"I need someone to find out when they're coming. Someone who can infiltrate their lines silently and surreptitiously and listen in without getting caught. Feuilly, you are particularly skilled at being invisible."

The others laughed nervously, but Enjolras continued,

"Will you do this to help the cause, brother?"

Before Feuilly had a chance to answer, Javert raised his hand in the air to get Enjolras' attention. "I can do this work expeditiously and effectively," he offered, "for I was one of them in Napoleon's army, when I was no older than any of you."

Enjolras looked suspicious, and his eyes flicked to his right-hand man, Combeferre, as if he were looking for confirmation of his reservations. Combeferre shrugged half-heartedly and looked toward Javert.

"Very well." Enjolras nodded with hesitation. "Monsieur, go, and return with news of their plans. We will need to know when to expect them. We are, of course, always ready, aren't we, my brothers?" His compatriots cried out their affirmation of support, and Enjolras said softly to Javert, "Always on guard. But we must know when to climb the barricade."

Javert nodded curtly, once, and began mounting the roadblock to get past it. It was the only way out; the street was a dead end.

"Farewell, Monsieur, and good fortune to you!" called the young man named Courfeyrac.

Just as Javert reached the other side of the barricade, he heard a whisper through a gap in the obstacle.

"Monsieur…"

Javert turned and saw Marius' sea-green eyes peering through the gap, wide and nervous. Javert looked at him expectantly, and Marius whispered urgently,

"If you see Éponine, wish her well for me."

Javert narrowed his eyes the slightest bit, but nodded reluctantly. Then he turned and was gone.

* * *

As it happened, Javert did not see Éponine at all. He thought of it, thought of going straight home and making sure she had eaten and had water, that her pillows were fluffed and that she was comfortable. He wanted nothing more at the moment than to see her face, no matter how sallow or sunken, and kiss her cheeks. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and whisper to her that he loved her more than life itself. But she had told him that now, more than ever, his duty compelled him to act responsibly, and so he did not go home. He instead sought out the nearest peloton of National Guard, and he found them only a few blocks away from the barricade.

They were holed up in a large café in Place Saint-Michel that had been abandoned during Lamarque's funeral. They were hardly hidden, but since they were well armed, the citizenry of Paris were keeping their distance. So, when Javert boldly strolled up to the café and asked for entrance, the lieutenant of the peloton curiously came to the front door and inquired,

"What are you doing here, citizen?"

"My name is Javert, Commissaire de Police," Javert informed them. "I am working undercover to infiltrate the insurrection." He extracted his orders from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed them politely to the lieutenant. The younger military officer read them patiently and handed them back to Javert. He nodded and said,

"Well, Monsieur le Commissaire, what may I do for you?"

"I need to give the rebels misleading information, some which will cause complacency at the time of attack. What shall I tell them?"

The lieutenant looked to his sergeant, who nodded as if to silently confirm a discussion that had been happening inside the café. The lieutenant looked back to Javert.

"Tell them that there will be no attack until morning. Tell them to rest and get their strength up."

"And the truth?" Javert asked.

"We will be there in no more than three hours."

* * *

Javert knew that he only had enough time to get the false information to the students, get them to drink and rest, and then escape. For, if he were at the barricade when the National Guard arrived, one of several terrible things was very likely to happen. First of all, he could be shot in the crossfire. Secondly, and more likely, he would be obviously revealed by his own untruths as a spy and executed. Then he would never see Éponine again. Better to carry out his mission and get back to the police station, make his report, and get home.

So, when he arrived at the barricade again, it was with a great amount of trepidation and nervousness roiling in his gut.

"He has returned!" Combeferre's voice rang out as Javert crept up the dark street. "Help him over the barricade!"

Javert's body was not as spry as it had been in his youth, so he accepted the assistance in scaling the barricade and huffed a bit from the exertion of climbing once he'd reached the other side. All the students, some bearing torches, gathered around to hear Javert's news. He nodded in greeting at Enjolras and said breathlessly,

"We have nothing to fear tonight, but in the morning it will be hell. They are gathering another peloton for this street. The company will then attack in the morning."

"Lies!"

All assembled were horribly startled and looked up with shocked eyes to the top of the barricade, where Gavroche was perched. Javert was not even aware that the little boy was present at the barricade. He'd not been there when Javert had left, and must have arrived during Javert's absence. Javert silently swore; of course the small child knew exactly who he was. They'd had several encounters in Saint-Michel as well as the particular instance in which Gavroche had delivered him a letter.

"This man is a Commissaire de Police! His name is Javert!" Gavroche cried, pointing a claw-like, bony finger at Javert. There was hatred in his small eyes, glowing in the light of the torches.

Everything that happened next happened in a flash. Javert felt himself suddenly restrained, his arms held firmly behind his body. There were angry voices all around him as the students realized what was going on. He felt a swift punch to his jaw and momentarily everything went black. When Javert opened his eyes again, he saw Enjolras' face before him, his blue eyes wild with rage.

"Is it true? What are you doing here?" he demanded, and Javert thought of glancing to Marius, but realized he would only incriminate the boy in doing so. If Marius was discovered to have been complicit through silence, he, too, would be killed. So, Javert simply nodded silently and muttered,

"I had orders. I had orders to come here and infiltrate your cause."

Enjolras gritted his teeth. Behind him, Feuilly cried out, "Kill him now, Enjolras! Look! Look what we took from him!"

In Feuilly's hand was Javert's treasured Pinfire Revolver, which they must have stripped from his holster as they were restraining him. Feuilly handed the gun to Enjolras and hissed again,

"Kill him!"

But Enjolras shook his head. "He was only following his orders, insidious though they were," the student pronounced authoritatively, and his fellow rebels looked thoroughly disappointed.

"We can not let him go!" cried Combeferre.

"Nor shall we," Enjolras confirmed. "Tie him up to that pole in there. After this war is won, the people will decide what to do with the snake."

He gestured to the Corinth restaurant behind Javert, and the students who restrained him dragged Javert backward into the main room of the restaurant. They held him firmly while another rebel fetched some rope, and then they bound Javert so tightly to the pole that after a few moments he could scarcely feel his fingers.

With a final kick to Javert's stomach that triggered a few deep coughs, the students left Javert in the dark restaurant and headed back out the barricade, where they talked for a while about strategy.

That left Javert with time to contemplate what was to happen to him. He must not die. But what was he to do while bound with rope? How would he get home and see Éponine? He had a horrible instinct that he was running out of time with her, and yet it would be so easy and simple for one of the rebels to walk in this restaurant and slit his throat with a knife.

Javert tapped the back of his head against the pole a few times in frustration, and then he began to hear cadenced pitter-patter outside. Before he could tell what it was, a hush had fallen over the barricade, and Javert quickly realized that it was the footsteps of approaching soldiers.

The students silently but rapidly gathered their arms and took their positions on the back of the barricade, ready for the impending battle. Marius was very near the top, by Enjolras and Combeferre. Marius adjusted the students' red flag where it had been positioned so that it rustled triumphantly in the summer night's breeze.

Javert felt a pit in his stomach. If Marius died, Éponine would lose some of her hope, some of her cause for living. What would he do – would he tell her that he had failed in protecting her friend, the boy that she had always loved? Or would he pretend he'd not even seen Marius at the barricade he'd chosen?

Very soon, the soldiers were charging the barricade. The students used their bayonets to hack at the National Guard ruthlessly, stabbing pitilessly downward from their position atop the barricade. Still, about three soldiers managed to mouth the barricade.

Marius hunched down to lift up a powder keg, and as he rose he came face-to-face with the barrel of a National Guardsman's rifle. Startled, Marius turned to flee, but the soldier fired, and then Marius went tumbling down the back of the barricade, thrown backward by the force of the shot. In revenge for slaying his friend, Enjolras stabbed the offending soldier with his bayonet.

Javert wanted to cry out to Marius, to see if he was alive, but he knew that if he did he would damn the boy should he happen to live. So, he stayed silent, biting his lip hard against his feelings of anger and frustration. Marius had landed on the cobblestones, and as a light, misty rain began to fall, the puddles of water mingled with dark spreading puddles of Marius' blood. His arms and legs were splayed awkwardly around him, so inelegantly that Javert could discern instantly that Marius was dead.

"We're almost out of bullets, and the powder's gone wet!" cried one of the students suddenly, and Javert remembered the students' plan to retrieve bullets from dead soldiers. As they bickered among themselves for the right to climb the barricade, Javert spotted Gavroche worming his way through a gap and heard the boy cry out,

"I'm very nearly there!"

Abruptly alarmed, the students went silent and stopped arguing. Grantaire, more than the others, seemed horrified by the idea of Gavroche going through the barricade and rushed to climb after him. Grantaire was pulled down by his compatriots, one of whom shouted,

"You'll get yourself killed, Grantaire!"

"Come back here this instant, Gavroche!" cried Grantaire.

Gavroche's little voice rang out from the other side of the barricade, "I've already got three bags' full!"

Then, suddenly, there was a shot.

"No!" Grantaire cried, struggling hard to climb the barricade. "Gavroche!"

"Just a warning shot!" Gavroche said loudly, nervous laughter ringing out in his tiny voice.

But then there were two more shots in rapid succession, and the next time Grantaire called out in panic for Gavroche, there was no answer. Grantaire collapsed into heaving sobs on the wet cobblestones, beside Marius and the three other students who had fallen. He looked around himself, taking in the sight of Marius and the other boys, and then his eyes fixed through a gap in the barricade to what Javert could only imagine was Gavroche's fallen, miniature corpse. Grantaire suddenly smashed his bottle of wine on the street, and it shattered into a hundred flying pieces of glass. Javert breathed silently, understanding for the first time that the students here were all, each and every one, doomed to die.

* * *

An hour later, the soldiers retreated for the night, but Javert knew they would be back with cannons and more men in the morning's light. Grantaire stalked angrily into the Corinth restaurant, looking with enraged, drunken eyes down at Javert through the darkness. He took a pocket-knife out of his vest and Javert realized with a knot in his throat that Grantaire had come here to kill him.

But then Grantaire cut the ropes that bound Javert and murmured quietly, "There has been enough unnecessary death tonight. Get the hell out of here. Do not return. Do not go to your superiors. Just go home."

Javert said nothing. He could not even bring himself to thank the boy. He could not bring himself to apologize. The words could not make their way to his lips. He simply stared at Grantaire's glassy eyes in the darkness and nodded fervently.

When the ropes were off of his arms, it took a moment for Javert to regain feeling in his extremities enough to walk. But then when he had the feeling again, he did not simply walk. He ran. He ran as quickly as he possibly could, out the side door of the Corinth restaurant to which Grantaire nodded and down a very narrow alley that he'd not even known was there. He ran hard and without stopping until he found himself on his own street, and then he pulled his key from his pocket and unlocked his door.

As he turned the key in the lock, Javert realized just how lucky he was to be alive. Perhaps, he thought absently, he was not supposed to be alive. Perhaps he was supposed to die in that restaurant, and Grantaire had meddled with fate.

Javert pushed the door open and tossed his dirty woolen hat to the ground, calling out, "Éponine?"

There was no answer.

Panicked and suddenly filled with terror, Javert went dashing down the hallway into the bedroom. He was horrified by what he saw.

In just the day that he'd been gone, Éponine had deteriorated to a point that he did not recognize her. If he'd not known it was Éponine in his bed, he'd have thought her a complete stranger. Her face was positively skeletal. Her skin was white as the sheets on which she lay, and glowed in the darkness with its translucent thinness.

When Javert burst into the room, Éponine's eyes opened a crack, very slowly, and the corners of her lips curled up in a minute little smile.

"You came home," she croaked, her voice so quiet Javert could scarcely hear.

He dashed to her side, tears already forming in his eyes as he realized that she was dying, as he realized that there was nothing he could do.

He took her hand, wasted away by the disease, and clutched it to his face. His tears tumbled over her fingers and he kissed her palm with shaking lips.

"I promised… I promised I would be here… when you came home," Éponine whispered, shutting her eyes. "I am here, if only for a moment."

"You can not leave me," Javert informed her matter-of-factly, his voice trembling as he began to weep openly. "You must not, Éponine. I can not go on… without you."

But Éponine said nothing, and her breath was rickety and shallow. Every few seconds, she stopped breathing altogether and Javert's heart began to race in absolute dread.

"Éponine!" Javert cried, his voice cracking. He still held her hand, and a moment later it went slack, and there was no strength in it at all. Javert squeezed her hand, just as he'd done when he'd thought her dead in the river. This time, when she did not squeeze back, and he did not hear her breath, and he saw the remaining color drain from her face, he knew. He knew that she was really and truly gone. He knew that he was alone.

* * *

Javert changed into his formal police uniform and carried Éponine's body to the Hôtel Dieu. He laid her on the steps of the hospital with a note that said, "Please give my wife a proper burial. Her name was Éponine. Just Éponine."

Then he walked a block northwest and stood on the Pont au Change, looking over the railing into the churning, black waters of the Seine.

Javert could not swim. He'd never learned, even growing up in Marseille and working in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Being close to the sea had never beckoned him to learn to swim, and he was completely useless in the water.

Now he felt useless on the Earth, as well.

If Grantaire had not saved his life, he would not have had to see Éponine die. She would have died anyway, but Javert would not have had to witness it. Damn the young man for his mercy. Javert felt very sincerely in that moment that he was meant to die in the Corinth restaurant, that being untied from the pole was the very worst thing that had ever happened to him.

Then there were Marius and Gavroche, who were wasted lives, whose deaths Javert had traumatically witnessed today, as well. He'd not even been able to tell Éponine of Marius' death, but no matter now. They were already together again, Javert told himself, and this time he felt no pang of jealousy on the matter whatsoever. He felt nothing but a distant happiness for Éponine that she was finally seeing Marius again, a friend and an unrequited love she'd been missing for over a year. Perhaps, Javert thought, in Heaven, Marius loved her in return.

But how was Javert supposed to live now? He felt no purpose whatsoever. He'd not seen hide nor hair of Jean Valjean in over a year and probably never would again. He'd failed at that, at catching the fugitive. He'd failed at protecting Marius, at saving the young man's life. He'd failed at his work, for he'd not even gone back to the police station with information and now it was too late for any information he'd gathered to be useful, anyway.

And, worst of all, he'd lost Éponine. That was unbearable, truly unbearable. She was not supposed to die before him. He was old and she was young, so for her to precede him in death was backward and wrong.

Javert glanced around and saw that, because of the troubles in the city, the streets in this part of town were completely deserted. He wordlessly climbed up onto the railing of the Pont au Change and stood there for a moment, shutting his eyes and listening to the water roiling beneath him.

He took a deep breath, savoring the warm night's air in his lungs, knowing that soon it would not be air filling his lungs, but the water of the Seine. Without opening his eyes, he leaned forward, until he fell from the bridge.

He kept his eyes closed as he tumbled through the air, and after a few seconds he felt the water smack his body so hard that he could not move. His body instinctively struggled against the water after a few seconds, trying to stay afloat, but since Javert could not swim, he was underwater within moments.

He opened his mouth and gasped, trying to drown himself faster and breathing in the water desperately. As his lungs filled with water, Javert opened his eyes and saw something heading toward him in the murky darkness of the water.

It was Éponine.

She was wearing a lovely delicate nightgown that flowed around her in the water, and she was smiling very gently. She looked healthy, as she had before she'd been ill. She reached out a hand through the churning river water, and, smiling in return, Javert reached to lace his fingers through hers.

She began pulling him toward her, deeper underwater, and Javert wondered absently where they were going. He knew that if he followed Éponine, he would find out very soon where Heaven was, and that he would never have to leave her again.

^^ Fin ^^


End file.
